Let's Tell This Story Properly

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  Here are the breeds that made the final list:

  German shepherds. Grrrr. My number one, sheer wolf!

  Great Danes. Hatari! Canine royalty right there!

  Dobermann pinscher. Mwoto-mwoto! No-nonsense Old- school.

  Akita. Must be a Ugandan name. The Akita are so beautiful you just want to have their pups.

  Siberian huskies. Wow! Wild kabisa. Killer eyes! Have you seen them dogs in motion? Agile, swift. I swear sometimes I think I prefer them to Alsatians.

  Dalmatians. Tamu-tamu. I call them white jaguars, so regal.

  Alaskan malamute. Dishy but rather haughty. So into themselves, don’t you think? Still, they would get an invite.

  Labradors. Lick, lick, lick. A bit tame but I suspect that a whiff of a female in season would let loose the wolf in them.

  St Bernards. They look kind of boring but would get an invite. You never know.

  As you can imagine, I wanted big, I wanted fearless, I wanted speed and strength—males that promised sturdy pups—but I drew the line at the Newfoundland. Monster would break your back.

  But at the time, I seemed to rub everyone the wrong way. They called me all sorts—sizeist, bigot, breedist. When we went for walks, not one male glanced at my butt let alone sniffed it. I thought, Wait till I’m in season, you’ll come crawling on your bellies. I should’ve known something was wrong. The first day in season I woke up, climbed on the sofa and snouted between the curtains. I looked through the window expecting a crowd of males, restless downstairs. The car park was empty.

  I wanted out of the house. If loving wouldn’t come to me, I would go and get me some for myself, but the door was locked. When eventually time for the walk came, I was not just put on the leash, I was muzzled.

  Picture this. You’re a debutante, coming out on your first day in season—in a muzzle, on a leash! I couldn’t walk beautiful if I tried.

  In the park, there was not a flicker of interest from the males, neither sniffs nor licks, nada. Just snide remarks that the muzzle became me. Then the mongrel whispered to me: Eunuchs!

  First I choked, then shivered, then I was filled with contempt. I wouldn’t wish that on a hyena. For the rest of the day, I was frustrated, confused, angry, restless and disgusted. I needed male loving. But when I turned on poor Orora—I attacked her in the night, apparently—we visited the vet again. Never been in season since.

  • • •

  I had never seen dogs with issues, I mean deep-seated issues like I saw at the dog shelter. In Uganda we had ticks, fleas, kawawa flies that ate flesh off your ears, worms, fungi and, more seriously, you could get rabies. There were also antisocial pariahs, but some of the things I saw at the sanctuary? No.

  If you want to find out which breed has fallen out of human favour, go to dog shelters. I love ice cream, but how can a dog be addicted to chocolate? And when sanctuary staff stop giving it to her she suffers withdrawal symptoms? I saw a dog who freaked out every time she smelt cigarettes. Another arrived at the sanctuary shaved naked. One involuntarily evacuated at the sound of human footsteps. But if a human came talking or whistling then she was fine. I saw a dog who fell to the ground scratching in agony, I saw pugs who could not breathe, dogs with cigarette burns all over their coats. Yet all of them believed that the next human would be the one. This canine love for humans in Britain baffled me.

  • • •

  It is happening. I am going to Jirikiti. Even the sun is out. My tail is not what it used to be; I would have danced. My human is in her bedroom getting dressed. They found out about her liver. Unlike other humans, she’s not going to fight it. She’s a tough one, my human. Did I tell you we’re the same age, me and my human? Eighty-four. In Uganda, they call my kind Mbwa ya Namaaso…

  PART 2

  Returning

  She is Our Stupid

  MY SISTER BIIRA IS NOT; she’s my cousin. Ehuu!

  Ever heard of King Midas’s barber, who saw the king’s donkey ears and carried the secret until it became too much to bear? I could not hold it in any longer. I stumbled across it five years ago at Biira’s wedding and I have been carrying it since. But unlike Midas’s barber—stupid sod dug a hole in the earth, whispered the secret in there and buried it—my family does not read fiction. A bush grew over the barber’s words and every time the wind blew the bush whispered, King Midas has donkey ears. I have also changed the names. Of course, the barber was put to death. But for me, if this story gets back to my family, death will be too kind.

  Back in 1961, Aunty Flower went to Britain on a sikaala to become a teacher—sikaala was scholarship or sikaalasip. Her name was Nnakimuli then. At the time, Ugandan scholars to Britain could not wait to come home, but not Aunty Flower; she did not write either. Instead, she translated Nnakimuli into Flower and was not heard from until 1972.

  It was evening when a special hire from the airport parked in my grandfather’s courtyard. Who jumped out of the car? Nnakimuli. As if she had left that morning for the city. They did not recognise her because she was so skinny a rod is fat. And she moved like a rod too. Then the hair. It was so big you thought she carried a mugugu on her head. And the make-up? Loud. But you know parents, a child can do things to herself but a parent will not be deceived. It was Grandfather who said, ‘Isn’t this Nnakimuli?’

  Family did not know whether to unlock their happiness because when her father reached to hug her, Nnakimuli planted kisses—on his right cheek and on his left—and her father did not know what to do. The rest of the family held onto their happiness and waited for her to guide them on how to be happy to see her. When she spoke English to them, they apologised: Had we known you were coming we would have bought a kilo of meat…haa, dry tea? Someone run to the shop and get a quarter of sugar…Remember to get milk from the mulaalo in the morning…Maybe you should sit up on a chair with Father; the ground is hard…The bedroom is in the dark…Will you manage our outside bathroom and toilet…Let’s warm your bathwater—you won’t manage our cold water. And when Nnakimuli said her name was Flower, the disconnect was complete. Their rural tongues called her Fulawa. When she helped them, Fl, Fl, Flo-w-e-r, they said Fluew-eh. Nonetheless, she had brought a little something for everyone. People whispered There’s a little of Nnakimuli left in this Fulawa.

  Not Fulawa, maalo, it’s Fl, Fl, Flueweh, and they collapsed in giggles.

  The following morning, Flower woke up at five, chose a hoe and waited to go digging. She scoffed when family woke up at 6 a.m. Now she spoke Luganda like she never left. Still, family fussed over her bare feet, chewing their tongues speaking English: ‘You’ll knock your toes, you’re not used.’ But she said, ‘Forget Flower; I am Nnakimuli.’

  She followed them to the garden where they were going to dig. When they divided up the part that needed weeding, they put her at the end in case she failed to complete her portion. She finished first and started harvesting the day’s food, collected firewood, tied her bunch and carried it on her head back home. She then fetched water from the well until the barrel in the kitchen was full. She even joined in peeling matooke. When the chores were done, she bathed and changed clothes. She asked Yeeko, her youngest sister, to walk her through the village greeting residents, asking about the departed, who got married—How many children do you have?—and the residents marvelled at how Nnakimuli had not changed. However, they whispered to her family Feed her; put some flesh on those bones before she goes back. Nnakimuli combed the village, remembering, eating wild fruit, catching up on gossip. For seven days, she carried on as if she was back for good and family relaxed. Then on the eighth day, after the chores, she got dressed, gave away her clothes and money to her father. She knelt down and said goodbye to him.

  ‘Which goodbye?’ The old man was alarmed. ‘We’re getting used to you: where are you going?’

  ‘To the airport.’

  ‘Yii-yii? Why didn’t you tell us? We’d have escorted you.’

  Entebbe Airport had a waving bay then. After your loved one check
ed in, you went to the top and waited. When they walked out on the tarmac, you called their name and waved. Then they climbed the steps to the plane, turned at the door and waved to you one last time and you jumped and screamed until the door closed. Then the engine whirred so loud it would burst your ears and it was both joyous and painful as the plane taxied out of sight and then it came back at a nvumulo’s speed and jumped in the air and the wheels tucked in and you waved until it disappeared. Then a sense of loss descended on you as you turned away.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dad’—she spoke English now—‘I’ll catch a bus to Kampala and then a taxi to the airport.’

  Realising that Fulawa was back, her father summoned all the English the missionaries taught him and said, ‘Mankyesta, see it for us.’

  ‘Yes, all of it,’ her siblings chimed as if Manchester was Wobulenzi Township, which you could take in in a glance.

  ‘Take a little stone,’ Yeeko sobbed, ‘and throw it into Mankyesta. Then it’ll treat you well.’

  That was the last time the family saw her sane. She did not write, not even after the wars—the Idi Amin one or the Museveni one—to see who had died and who had survived. Now family believes that when she visited, madness was setting in.

  Don’t ask how I know all of this. I hear things, I watch, I put things together to get to the truth. Like when I heard my five grandmothers, sisters to my real grandmother who died giving birth to Aunty Yeeko, whisper that Aunty Zawedde should have had Biira. Me being young, I thought it was because Biira is a bit too beautiful. Aunty Zawedde is childless.

  In 1981, a Ugandan from Britain arrives looking for the family. He says that Flower is in a mental asylum. Family asks ‘How?’ Apparently she started falling mad, on and off, in the 1970s. ‘How is she mad?’ The messenger didn’t know. ‘Who’s looking after her?’ You don’t need family to look after you in a mental asylum. ‘You mean our child is all alone like that?’

  She’s with other sick people and medical people. ‘Who put her there?’ Her husband. ‘Husband, which husband?’ She was married. ‘Don’t tell me she had children as well.’ No. ‘Ehhuu! But what kind of husband dumps our child in an asylum without telling us? How did he marry her without telling us?’ Also, ask yourselves, the messenger said, how Flower married him without telling you. The silence was awkward. However, love is stubborn. Family insisted, ‘Us, we still love our person’; Nnakimuli might have been stupid to cut herself off from the family, but she was their stupid. ‘Is her husband one of us or of those places?’ Of those places. ‘Kdto!’ They had suspected as much. The messenger gave them the address and left. Family began to look for people who knew people in Britain. Calls were made; letters were written: We have our person in this place; can you check on her and give us advice? In the end, family decided to bring Aunty Flower back home: ‘Let her be mad here with us.’ The British were wonderful; they gave Aunt Flower a nurse to escort her on the flight.

  Aunt Flower had got big. A bigness that extended over there. She smoked worse than wet firewood. Had a stash of Marlboros. ‘Yii, but this Britain,’ family lamented, ‘she even learnt to smoke?’ With the medicine from Britain, Aunt Flower was neither mad nor sane. She was slow and silent.

  Then the medicine ran out and real madness started. People fall mad in different ways. Aunty Flower was agitated, would not sit still, as if caged. ‘I am Flower Down, Down with an e.’ ‘Who?’ family asked. ‘Mrs Down with an e.’ Family accepted. ‘I want to go.’ ‘Go where?’ ‘Let me go.’ ‘But where?’ ‘I could be Negro, I could be West Indian—how do you know?’ They let her go. Obviously, England was still in her head. But someone kept an eye on her. All she did was roam and remind people that she was Down with an e. But by 6 p.m., she was home. After a month, the family stopped worrying. Soon the bigness disappeared, but not the smoking. Through the years, Flower Downe roamed the villages laughing, arguing, smoking. She is always smart, takes interest in what she wears. However, if you want to see Aunty Flower’s madness properly, touch her cigarettes.

  Then in 1989 someone remarked, ‘Isn’t that pregnancy I see on Flower?’ The shock. ‘Yii, but men have no mercy—a madwoman?’ An urgent meeting of her siblings, their uncles and aunts was called: ‘What do we do, what do we do?’ There were threats: ‘If we ever catch him!’ They tried to coax her: ‘Flower, who touched you there?’ But when she smiled dreamily, they changed tactics: ‘Tell us about your friend, Mrs Downe.’ She skipped out of the room. A man was hired again to tail her. Nothing.

  A few months later, Aunt Flower disappeared. When I came home for the holidays, she was not pregnant. I imagined they had removed it. Meanwhile, Mum had had Biira but I don’t remember seeing her pregnant. I was young and stupid and did not think twice about it.

  There is nothing to tell about Biira. I mean, what do I know? I am the eldest—she is the youngest. She came late, a welcome mistake, we presumed. Like late children, she was indulged. She is the loving, protective, fiercely loyal but spoilt sister with a wild sense of fashion. We grew up without spectacle, close-knit. However, we do not have a strong family resemblance—everyone looks like themselves. So there is nothing about Biira to single her out apart from being beautiful. But all families have that selfish sibling who takes all the family looks—what can you do? However, if you want to see Biira’s anger, say she resembles Aunty Flower.

  Then Biira found a man. We did the usual rites families do when a girl gets engaged. Then on the wedding day, Aunty Flower came to church. No one informed her, no one gave her transport, no one told her what to wear, yet she turned up at church decked out in a magnificent busuuti like the mother of the bride. Okay, her jewellery and make-up were over the top, but she sat quiet—no smoking, no agitating, just smiling—as Biira took her vows. And why were Dad and his sibling restless throughout the service? Later they said, ‘Flower came because Biira resembles her.’ I thought, Lie to yourselves. Aunty Flower never came to any of my cousins’ weddings.

  The day of Biira’s wedding, I looked at Aunt Flower properly and I am telling you the way Biira resembles her is not innocent—I mean gestures, gait, fingers, and even facial expressions. How? I have been watching Aunt Flower since. There is no doubt that her mind is absent—deaths, births, marriages in the family do not register. However, mention Biira and you will see moments of lucidity in Aunt Flower’s eyes.

  My Brother, Bwemage

  UP TO THE MOMENT Nnaava made the announcement that she and Mulumba were getting engaged traditionally, returning to Uganda had not crossed my mind. Uganda had become extended family, cousins you played with as a child but had drifted away from. Occasionally, you remember them when something happens—a death, a marriage or a birth—and ask your mum, Mpozi, who was that? But when I realised that we had to go home for Nnaava’s rituals, memories started to pop up—City Parents’, my former school; church; kamunye taxis; the dust; power cuts; and the pesky boda boda. But these were general recollections. Then the date for the rituals was set and we bought the tickets. That was when details returned.

  First were my grandparents. I dreaded that first contact, especially with Dad’s parents, when they would look at me like Even you? To abandon us like that?

  Then there was Dad. Let’s put Dad aside.

  Then our home. For some reason, it was the outdoors that I remembered best. The compound, especially in the morning under a languid sun before the shadows folded, the ripened guavas, the jackfruit tree laden with browned nduli and long oval pawpaws hanging down the neck of the tree. In the garden by the hedge, Mum had two matooke shrubs and a few stalks of maize and vegetables. The mango tree near the gate was young then. Avocado so big the fruit cracked when they fell. Their skin turned purple when they softened. I could even hear our neighbour, Maama Night, sweeping her yard. But for some reason the inside was hazy. I remembered my bed when I got up and ran to the window to look outside, I remembered the darkness when I woke up thirsty in the night and went to the fridge, I remembered running through the corridor
to Mum and Dad’s bedroom and throwing myself on their bed. We walked barefoot indoors; we left our shoes and slippers by the door.

  To tell the truth, I didn’t want to go back. Not after the way we left. I would have gladly stayed in Britain and pretended that Uganda did not exist. But Nnaava, ever the dutiful elder daughter to whom rebellion was sheer selfishness, was going to introduce her fiancé. Dad and the wider family had to be present with all the trappings of kwanjula rites. I had to be there.

  As for Mum, god help us. Our mother was very Ugandan when it came to marriage. For her, getting hitched to a man was a coup, far greater than graduating. She would revel in people saying Well done on getting your eldest married! then turn to me: ‘You’re next, Nnabakka; don’t let us down.’ What bothered me most was the way Nnaava’s marriage seemed to have erased the scandal. It was as if we had never fled.

  In June 2013, we flew back.

  Immigration at Entebbe did not disappoint. It’s a tiny airport, one terminal handling a few flights a day, but the chaos was unbelievable. There was only one queue for all passengers even though there were four desks—two marked UGANDAN PASSPORTS, one marked EAST AFRICAN PASSPORTS and one for INTERNATIONAL PASSPORTS. People jumped out of the queue and walked past you like you were dumb to line up. There were no instructions on the tannoy to guide passengers, no gangway, no staff at the gate to give you directions, no signposts for different queues. We were home. I was beginning to embrace it when we came to the Immigrations desk and had to pay for our visas. We were not Ugandan in Uganda the way we were in Britain. The lady, though she had recognised our names, reminded us not to outstay our visitor visas. That was it. I said, tapping every word on her desk, ‘Excuse me, madam; Nze Nnabakka. Ndi Muganda. My totem is Ffumbe, A kabiro Kikere. My sister’s name is Nnaava. That means our mother is a royal.’ All the Luganda came rushing back. ‘Tuli baana ba ngoma, ba kungozi’—I had no idea what that meant—‘ba nvuma. Baganda wawu!’ I walked away.