A Girl is a Body of Water

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  “He was involved in a car accident.”

  “Involved” sounded like an accusation. As if Tom had been “involved” in an affair. “It is that Nunciata. I told her Dad had died, but she denied it. Our parents die when she collects us from class like that.”

  Aunt Abi came into the office. Kirabo ran to her. The sudden movement provoked her flow. It gushed, but she did not check her skirt. She pointed at the headmistress. “She said that Dad is dead.”

  It was not the fact that Aunt Abi did not answer, or that her eyes were red that broke Kirabo’s heart; it was her busuuti. Aunt Abi hated wearing it, called it oppressive. Aunt Abi dressing traditionally meant she had given up on Tom.

  “Have I not been bringing good reports?”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Have I not been keeping out of trouble? But still he goes and dies?”

  Aunt Abi led her out of the office. They stood on the verandah of the administration block for a long time, holding each other, crying, until the hooter for break time went. The drizzle had stopped. As they took the stairs to the car park, Aunt Abi said, “The whole family is in disarray. We have all run out of common sense. It was only last night that Widow Diba remembered you. The burial is today. This kind of calamity has never befallen our family. Tom, of all people? I never thought I would say this, but thank God for Widow Diba.”

  Just then, Atim approached with a small bag packed for Kirabo. She also held a cup of water and two Aspro tablets. She placed the bag at Kirabo’s feet and handed her the tablets. Kirabo popped them out of their blisters and swallowed them with water. Atim told Aunt Abi, “I will try and take down notes for Kirabo in class.” First she hugged Aunt Abi, who said, “Thank you child, thank you very much.” Then she hugged Kirabo and whispered in her ear, “I have put more Aspro in the side pocket and eight more pads I have rolled in case you continue to flow tomorrow.” As she pulled away, she said, “Your next dose is at 2 PM, don’t forget.” Kirabo managed a thank-you smile before Atim ran off. Then she came back. “Nga kitalo,” she said in shaky Luganda.

  •

  Perhaps Tom was not really dead; this was Tom, after all—tall, handsome, intelligent—how could he die? All the way to Kampala, Kirabo floated on disbelief. Kampala was sunny, dusty but vibrant. But Bugoloobi Town was on assisted breathing. The OMO advert had peeled in parts; the faces of the laughing family were gone. CHIBUKU had curled on to itself, but WINNERS was intact. The famous flats were slummy. When they came to the bungalows similar to Tom’s, Kirabo sat up. Then she saw smoke rise above the trees and knew it was from the funereal hearth. The gate, when they got to it, was wide open. People walked in and out as if it was a market.

  •

  When she stepped out of the car someone cried, “Kirabo—oh,” and women hurried over to her. Grandmother grabbed her in a hug and they swayed their pain from side to side. Then Grandfather held her as if she was fragile. But he was the fragile one. Kirabo felt him shake through his shirt. The skin on his back was loose, very soft. She had never realised how skinny he was. When he pulled away he said, “He was in such a hurry, your father; always impatient, was he not?”

  Kirabo nodded.

  “But we were blind. We did not realise. Even as a child Tom rushed through chores, in school he was made to skip levels. He had you at seventeen. You wanted to say Slow down, Tom, take your time, but no. Such people don’t last.”

  Then Widow Diba gasped, “Child, we have run out of words.” Then Jjajja Nsangi grabbed her and said, “What Tom has done to us, Mother Hen does to her chicks. I mean, why jump into a pan to make a stew when you have young ones?”

  Uncles and aunts Kirabo had forgotten had appeared from nowhere. They made comforting statements: “Does a parent die? Not when he leaves behind bits of himself like Kirabo.” When she arrived in the sitting room, Nsuuta held out her hands to Kirabo, but the angle was wrong. Her voice was hoarse when she whispered, “He was all we had, me and you.” Kirabo buried her head in Nsuuta’s lap. She could not bear to look at the coffin because the tree whose timber had made it was once a seedling with tender leaves and baby branches; then it had grown, Tom unaware.

  The sitting room and the dining space were unrecognisable. The drawer-shelves used as a divider had been pulled away to create one expansive room. The sofa set and couch were outside in a kidaala, a makeshift canopy. The women sat everywhere on the carpet. Their luggage, consisting of migugu tied in cotton bitambala with crocheted flowers, was strewn along the walls. Skinny legs with calloused feet stretched out. Sunburned faces. Babies—some half dressed, some naked except for beads around waists or talismans around necks—sat without nappies on the carpet. Jjajja Nsangi sat at the head of the coffin like a matriarch. Her chest rose and swallowed her neck, cupping her chin between her breasts. Then the chest fell and her neck re-emerged like a miracle. Grandmother was dry-eyed.

  Kirabo perked up. Nsuuta and Grandmother sat next to each other. She searched their faces for the feud. When had they made up? But then Aunt Abi walked in like she was the head of Tom’s house. The house keys were fastened on the sash of her busuuti. Everyone who needed something went to her. Poor Uncle Ndiira had been forced out of his shell. He was at the door saying something about burial schedules. His voice was quiet and he did not look at people directly. Aunt YA walked in, saw Kirabo, and wailed, “Tom, you have not loved this child enough!” and got down on her knees and keened.

  Uncle Ndiira disappeared. The women picked up Aunt YA’s lament like a tidal wave. Kirabo looked around: Where was Nnambi? Jjajja Nsangi sat in the widow’s place. Aunt Abi and Aunt YA strutted about the house like cockerels.

  “Indeed, the child of his youth he could not love.”

  For some time, the women did not say why Tom did not love Kirabo enough, until Aunt Abi came back. She did not beat around the bush. “My brother fidgeted with this child.” She wagged a finger at no one. “This child has been tossed from here to there as if my brother had no home.” She opened the door that led to the corridor and called, “What kind of woman drives her husband’s child out of his house, hmm?” Still holding the door, she turned to the women. “Can you imagine, Nnambi told her sister that Kirabo was dropped on her like death by accident?”

  “Eh-eh, she is a real witch, that one.”

  A young woman shifted irritably. “The truth is that there is dying by car accident and then there is dying by car accident not-so-accidentally. I have said it.”

  “Yes, let’s talk about it. Are we going to say beautiful things like we came for a bride?”

  “Her name is Nnambi, her brother is Death: What did you expect?”

  “Don’t say that; we do not say things like that,” said Widow Diba, but no one took her seriously. She had not challenged the insinuation that Tom’s widow had killed him; it was the sacrilege of sullying Nnambi, the mother of humanity.

  The realisation hit Kirabo hard. She had forgotten that Nnambi, the mother of humanity, had a dark side—the bringer of Death, her brother—which the nation pretended did not exist. Suddenly Muka Tom’s name was made appropriate. Kirabo stole a look at Nsuuta; Nsuuta’s eyes were trained on her as if she had heard her thought. Kirabo was mortified. She looked at Aunt Abi beseechingly, but Aunt Abi was just getting started.

  “Now what are you going to do, hmm?” Aunt Abi launched through the door. “Tom has abandoned you. Now you need us.”

  “Which us?” a woman asked. “You mean us, the family she drove away?”

  Nsuuta leaned towards Grandmother and whispered, “Are you not going to stop the girls?” Grandmother nudged her to keep quiet. She covered her mouth and whispered something. Nsuuta glanced in Jjajja Nsangi’s direction as if she could see her. Nsuuta sat back and kept quiet.

  “The Coffee Marketing Board is going to evict her in how many months?” Aunt YA waved three fingers above the women. “Three. That is all they give you.” It was clear that the sisters were stamping their authority on the house, on Nnambi and on the
children.

  “As long as she leaves our children behind.”

  “Were you born in Switzerland,” Aunt Abi called through the door, “where they have never heard of different mothers, hmm? And you bring that discrimination, which does not work with our families, into our clan?”

  Nsuuta rose on her knees above the women. Grandmother tried to pull her down, but Nsuuta shook off her hand. She turned her head in Aunt Abi’s direction and called, “Abi, child?” Unfortunately, her eyes looked away from where Aunt Abi stood.

  “Leave them, Nsuuta.” Jjajja Nsangi also got up and helped Nsuuta down with authority. “Let the girls express themselves. This is their brother’s house. They have authority to speak up when things are not right. Tom failed to control his wife. Now he has left her to us. What that woman suggested between father and daughter is unsayable. Let her know she married into a formidable family, otherwise she will shit on our heads.” Now Nsangi addressed everyone. “In Luutu’s family, our men are quiet, you can walk all over them, but not us women, hmm, hmm. Me, I watch my brother’s wives with a sharp eye. I will not let a wife grow horns around my brother. I have trained my nieces on how to be women and I am glad my effort has not been wasted.”

  Nsuuta stayed down. In stating that this was their brother’s house, Nsangi was telling her, This is my family, I am Great Aunt. Who are you?

  “But in this case, I also blame my wife here.” Nsangi turned on Grandmother. “She did not assert her authority when Nnambi first arrived as a bride. A woman marries into my family, I let her know her place immediately. How does a woman start to throw her husband’s child out of the family home, hmm? How? Had I known in time, Tom or no Tom, I would have come to this house and adjusted her. I am not Children’s Aunt for nothing.”

  “European ways don’t suit our culture.” Widow Diba tried to steer attention away from Grandmother. “They have their own, we have ours.”

  Aunt Abi was not yet sated. “Listen, Nnambi, my brother is dead and our children don’t deserve this abandonment, but as for you—good riddance.”

  That was when Grandfather appeared in the doorway. Silence fell over the women like a class of rowdy pupils caught by a stern teacher.

  “Abisaagi?” he called softly, “have I died and you taken over my family? Are you dictating who is and who is not a member now?”

  Silence.

  “Are you the only one hurting? My son is dead, my grandchildren are orphans, my wife is in agony, but you are picking a quarrel with the widow.”

  Aunt Abi let go of the door to the corridor and it fell shut.

  “Where is Widow Tom? Why is she not sitting here close to her husband? Did you drive her away, Abisaagi?”

  “Not I, her guilt.”

  “Go fetch her.” Miiro did not reproach his sister, who sat in the widow’s place.

  Aunt Abi, mouth so pointed it touched her nose, disappeared into the corridor. A minute later, she came back with a frightened-looking Nnambi. She too was dressed in a busuuti. She could not look at anyone.

  “Come, child,” Miiro said. “You must sit at the head of your husband in his last moments. Move, Children’s Aunt,” he told Nsangi. “Make space for our daughter.” He turned to Nnambi. “Where are your sisters, child?”

  Nnambi pointed towards her bedroom.

  “Abisaagi, go get her sisters.” He smiled at Nnambi. “You need your family around you. My daughters might eat you.”

  All Nnambi’s sisters, and there were a lot of them, looked alike—Rank Xerox, they called such siblings at St. Theresa’s. They sat behind Nnambi; everyone shifted to make space for them, and resentment rose.

  When Grandfather withdrew, Ssozi was heard exclaiming, “Women, kdto. They are like Zungu chickens in a pen. If you don’t debeak them they turn on each other and peck, kyo-kyo, kyo-kyo, kyo-kyo.”

  Nsangi shot up like a teenager. She stepped over women’s legs, shoving shoulders out of her way until she got to the door. She stood straight. “Mr. Ssozi,” she called too politely, “I am only asking like a chicken does: Why keep the Zungu chickens in confines? Why not let them out to roam and scratch and peck at insects and worms and see if they come home in the evening and peck at each other? Why debeak hens for something you are doing wrong?”

  Ssozi did not respond.

  Neither did Grandfather.

  Nsuuta elbowed Grandmother; Grandmother nudged her back.

  Nsangi returned to her position like a victorious wrestler. “I have finished that one.” She sat down heaving and out of breath. “Sometimes you have to show them that you use your brain, otherwise they presume you don’t have one.” That was the thing about Jjajja Nsangi. You hated her for bullying your grandmother, but then she would go and put kweluma in the most effective image. And then you wonder why someone like her—who knows that oppressed people turn on each other to vent because the oppressor is untouchable—is the worst at kweluma?

  “Kirabo.” Diba broke the silence, “Come here, child.” Diba sat on the other side of Grandmother like a maid of honour. Kirabo shuffled on her knees towards her. First, Diba checked Kirabo’s face as if to make certain that she had washed it, then she dusted her uniform sweater—a silent message to Nnambi. “It is a closed casket,” she said, “because your father died in a car accident. But it is him in there. Miiro, his brothers, our sons, and Ssozi went to Mulago Hospital to identify him. They all agree that it is our Tom: Would they lie?”

  Kirabo shook her head.

  “Then you must let him go. Us, we have put our hands in the air and said Tom, you win. Because you have not seen his remains, your mind will play tricks on you. But when it starts, remember my words—it is him. Now touch the coffin.”

  Kirabo hesitated.

  “Touch it, because you will not wipe your father’s forehead in farewell.”

  A woman said, “Are you telling Kirabo only? We all need those words.”

  The lid was as smooth as Formica. Kirabo’s hand slid along the edge, which reminded her of the fallboard of the grand piano in the chapel.

  Later, when Nnambi had been disregarded by the women, Kirabo observed her. Nnambi was struggling. She was in extreme pain, but she could not cry out loud and let it out. When overcome, she closed her eyes, bit her lips, and shook her head. Failing to hold it in, her head dropped. Her arms, placed on the floor, trembled. Then she took a long breath to swallow the tears. Wiping her eyes, she sniffed, stabilised her breathing, and looked up again. Kirabo wanted to reach out and whisper condolences, Nga kitalo, but Nnambi only looked above people’s heads. Kirabo was ashamed of her aunts’ mauling of Nnambi. She wanted to think it was because this was Nnambi’s home and she deserved respect and compassion. But Kirabo knew that Nsuuta’s warning—that women reacted, not acted; that stepmothers did not make themselves—had caught up with her.

  •

  A concerned woman—Kirabo did not recognise her—brought Mwagale and little Tommy to the sitting room. Mwagale had grown incredibly and Tommy was nothing like the baby Kirabo had last seen. The woman said to them, “Sit with your sister.” Miiro might have stopped the haranguing, but women had other ways of expressing their feelings about Nnambi. Mwagale looked so like her mother, Kirabo felt sorry for her. It was not the right time to look like Nnambi. Tommy looked like himself, which was safe.

  “Nga kitalo, Daddy’s death,” Kirabo whispered when they had sat down. The women were watching to see whether she held anger in her heart. At the merest trace of it they would step in and say Look here, Kirabo, they did not choose their mother.

  “Kitalo,” they said.

  “How did it happen?” Kirabo asked.

  “Kdto,” Mwagale clicked in self-pity. “It was on Monday, as he came to pick us up at school—”

  “Yes,” Tommy interrupted, “he collided with an army jeep near the golf club.”

  “You know how the army drives.”

  “He died on the spot.” Tommy was echoing someone’s words.

  It is Wednesday,
Kirabo thought. Tom has been dead two days; that is extremely dead.

  “The school driver brought us home at night—”

  “Yes.” Tommy rushed his words. “He brought us home because the school did not know what was going on and Mummy was not picking up the phone.”

  “You have Grandmother’s voice, Tommy,” Kirabo said.

  “Everyone says it,” Mwagale laughed. “Wait till you grow up; you will boom, boom like Grandmother.”

  “Yeah? I don’t mind, but you? Your feet have verandahs like Aunt Abi’s.”

  Kirabo watched them, wondering when Mwagale had turned into the little sister who said, “I am coming to St. Theresa’s too … Everyone knows my big sister is at St. Theresa’s … Daddy says you want to become a doctor for animals …”

  “Yes, Kirabo, do animals get injections?”

  Before Kirabo could respond, Mwagale whispered, “We are going to move out of this house.”

  Tommy’s face fell. “We are moving into the new house Daddy was building.”

  “Because this one belongs to Coffee: you move out when your daddy dies.”

  “Even though the other house is not yet finished.”

  “Thank God Daddy was building a house, then,” Kirabo said.

  “Will you still be at St. Theresa’s next year?” Mwagale asked.

  “No, but apply. If you get in, I will come with you on your first day and tell my friends to look after you. And I will come on every Visitors’ Sunday.”

  “I like your uniform.”

  “This is the A-level one. The O-level uniform is a wrapper.”

  Sio might come for the burial. Unbridled anticipation surged through Kirabo. Then the shame, then disgust. She did not know where the thought came from.

  “Kirabo, Jjajja Miiro is calling you.” Aunt YA’s daughter stood at the door.

  “Where is he?”

  “Under the canopy.”

  “Come, let’s go,” Kirabo said to Tommy and Mwagale, to get them out of the stifling sitting room. Outside, the sun was bright, the air felt lighter.

  “Yii kabejja,” Miiro said as Kirabo came down the steps, “what kind of wife abandons her man the way you abandoned me in Nattetta? Every time the bus stops outside our house I say to my one, surely that must be kabejja, but wa.”