Finally, the driveway to Luutu’s house. Aunt Abi stopped the car as the truck carrying the casket reversed to park closer to the path leading to the family graveyard. Kirabo realised then that all this time she had nursed an irrational expectation that Tom would get up and laugh, I was only joking.
When she stepped out of the car she walked to the house. The mosquito netting round the stoep was gone. She went to the front door and peered inside what used to be Luutu’s reception room for dignitaries. The floor was earth. It was still big and dark. She ignored all the crying and fussing people were doing, as if she had merely come to see Luutu’s house. She went to the left side of the house. The shell of Luutu’s Zephyr still had a perfect skin. She used to get into it and kick the pedals and move the gear stick and turn the thin wheel, honking. As she turned away, she saw Sio and Wafula sitting on the verandah on the far end. They had not seen her. She pulled her I am over you face.
Sio saw her and looked away. Wafula hurried to her. They hugged. In the corner of her eyes she saw Sio hesitate, then walk over. He shook her hand and said, “Nga kitalo.” Kirabo said, “Kitalo,” and it was over, and he was walking away, and she wondered whether he was back with Giibwa. She considered their child. When the child was born, Sio had written to say he had a daughter. Then to say he was keeping Giibwa at his house while she nursed the baby, that Giibwa would leave as soon as the child was old enough to be taken to Sio’s mother in Dar, since neither had the money to look after the baby. He hoped Kirabo would understand. Kirabo did not reply. But it did not stop her from imagining what the child looked like.
“Kiraboo.” Ntaate’s voice was still the same.
Growing up is funny. No one turns out the way you expect them to. Who knew Ntaate would stretch himself to get a bit tall? And since when was he shy? They hugged. She asked about St. Kalemba, his school, as they walked to join the crowd at the graveside. Unfortunately, her eyes were constantly pulled towards Sio, thinking Let him see me smiling at his arch-enemy and Where is Giibwa? Jjajja Doctor was talking through Tom’s obituary: “He was thirty-five years old”—the mourners tsked—“survived by three children”—tsks, sighs, heads shaking—“and a widow”—sullen silence. “The last rites will be held in August,” said Jjajja Doctor.
Period pain broke through and Kirabo realised she had forgotten to take the tablets at 2 PM. She had not changed either. Tom was lowered into the grave. She caught Sio’s nervous glance and looked away. August was six months away. Sio would come for Tom’s last funeral rites. Pain radiated into her hip joints. She threw soil down the hole and walked away.
On the way to Miiro’s house, without Sio’s presence to distract her from the reality of Tom’s burial, guilt set in. She had walked away from her father without a thought. She had left him alone in a dark hole. He might be claustrophobic. They came to Nsuuta’s house and she noticed that the old musambya, where the original state was buried, was gone. The thick passion fruit plant that had once roped itself around the tree was gone too. Goose bumps swept over her arms and at once she was back at Tom’s graveside. Too late. The men building his grave had closed it. She knelt by the hole, put her ear to the ground, and listened—silence. The men added the wire meshing, then the iron sheets. When the noise stopped, she listened again—nothing. The men poured a mixture of cement, sand, and pebbles on top of the wire meshing and then levelled it. In the distance, car doors opened and closed.
“Step out, Kirabo. I need to lock the car.”
She fell back into the car. The smell of heated leather seats mingled with the plastic of the dashboard seemed stronger. She dropped her head on her knees. The pain was keen. Aunt Abi rubbed her back and neck, then she held Kirabo’s hand and helped her out. It was five thirty, but the sun was still burning. Kirabo looked up at the mango tree. It had lost most of its branches. She shrugged off the idea that the original state was back in her body because Nsuuta’s musambya had been cut down.
She went to the car boot and opened her bag, found a pad Atim had rolled for her, and stuffed it into her pocket. Then she popped two tablets out of the Aspro blister and tossed them into her mouth and swallowed them with saliva. Avoiding the diiro where women were crying the reality that Tom was not coming back, she went to the latrine to change. Afterwards, she went in search of Grandfather. She needed to lie down until the painkillers kicked in. At the back of the house, nuns helped the Mothers’ Union with food as if there were no road between the Protestant and Catholic parishes in Nattetta. Catholic priests were seating mourners to start serving food. Nattetta Church Choir was washing and drying plates.
Miiro stood behind the poultry barn for the Zungu chickens, facing away from Kirabo. His head leaned against Father Dewo’s shoulder. Jjajja Doctor held him by the waist. Kirabo melted away. She went to the chicken barn and pushed the door. It was dark, empty, and quiet. She leaned against the wooden wall. The chicken litter on the floor had hardened. The smell, a mixture of chicken poo and floor husks, was old and thin. The sun made tiny beams through little holes in the roof, like puny spotlights.
Kirabo closed her eyes and willed herself to fly out of her body. She would lie on her back below the ceiling and count squares. Then this pain would drain to the floor. But she stayed earthbound. When she heard Miiro and his brothers walk away, she ran after Miiro and whispered that she wanted to lie down. They did not look at each other as they walked to the house. He opened the door of his bedroom. Jjajja Nsangi was asleep on his bed. He asked her to shove close to the wall. Kirabo slipped inside his bed and smelled the sheets. It felt like childhood.
6
3 March 1983
Information about Kirabo’s mother strolled in on Thursday, the day after Tom’s burial. It arrived with neither elation nor relief. Kirabo would have had Nnakku die a hundred deaths to have her father back. She would sooner have wished Giibwa and Sio’s child into non-existence than find her mother.
Kirabo was preparing to go back to Old Kampala when she was told that Grandfather wanted to talk to her. Aunt Abi feared that their house, being unoccupied for so long, would attract thieves. Many of the mourners who had spent the night had started to leave, and their departure was starting to be felt. After burial, people had huddled around the family, creating a false sense of warmth. But now a hole was beginning to open. Fortunately, Grandmother’s people would stay longest, especially the women, trickling away slowly so she would not feel their leaving. But Miiro’s people, most of whom came from the city, were in a hurry. Kirabo too could not wait to go back to school, where the world outside could be imagined away. Grandfather sat outside under the mango tree with another man of the same age.
“Someone bring us a mat,” Miiro called when he saw Kirabo coming. “Can we have Mwagale and Tomusange come too?”
Kirabo smiled at the predictability of the moment. The traditional order, which Nnambi had disrupted, was being repaired.
“Can we have a mat?” Miiro called again.
As she sat down, Mwagale and Tommy arrived. Kirabo gave them the They are going to talk culture look.
“Sit down, all of you. I will start with you two.” Grandfather pointed to Mwagale and Tommy. “Do you know her?” He pointed at Kirabo.
Mwagale said, “She is our sister.”
“Come here, Mwagale, let me hug you because you are intelligent.”
“She is my sister as well.” Tommy wanted a hug too.
“Kirabo is not just Kirabo,” Grandfather said. “She is Baaba because she was born before you were, and we respect those who arrived before us even though we do not know why that is; not so?”
The two nodded.
“What do you call her?”
“Baaba Kirabo.”
“Good. But most important, there is no such thing as Our mothers are different. We don’t know such things. Our mothers are very important but, in the clan, we put them aside and focus on father, grandfather, and all those grandfathers that came before. If your father is the same, you are brother
and sister. If your fathers are brothers, you are brother and sister—no such nonsense as cousin-brother, cousin-sister.”
“Cousin-brother oh-oh,” the other man laughed. “Where do they find these words?”
“English.” Miiro turned back to the children: “Cousins are our aunts’ children because they come from other clans and have different totems. You hear me?”
They nodded.
“Now, Kirabo, look at your siblings.” Miiro pointed. Kirabo turned to them. “In the absence of your father, you look after them in every way you can. They don’t call you Baaba for nothing. You set an example. You love them whether they love you back or not. Be easy to approach. I don’t want to hear that nonsense of half-this or half-that.”
Kirabo nodded.
“You two, when you have a problem, the first person is Kirabo. She will say let’s do this, or let’s take that problem to Mother, or to Aunt Abi or to Uncle Ndiira or to Jjajja Miro. You have heard me?”
They nodded.
“Now the two of you can go. Kirabo, stay behind.”
When Mwagale and Tommy had gone, Miiro turned to the other man and said, “Your turn.”
“Now, wife.” The man leaned towards Kirabo. “Who am I?”
Kirabo’s mind went into a spin. He had called her wife, which meant he was her grandfather, but what kind of grandfather? Perhaps a son of Luutu’s brother? She stated the obvious: “You are Jjajja.”
“Of course, but which grandfather?”
“Jjajja Miiro’s brother.”
Miiro laughed. The man clapped and dropped his head in shame. “I am Ssemwaka Kaye, I am from Mityana; I am your mother’s father.”
Kirabo took a while to absorb what he had said. Then she remembered that Nnambi was from Mityana. “Oh, that mother?” She indicated to where Nnambi sat.
“Yes, that one, and the other one too.”
Kirabo looked at him. Now she remembered he had come to her baptism when she was seven. He brought her a pair of white shoes and those socks with pink diamonds on the side, the ones she buried with the original state.
“Which other one?”
“Nnakku.”
Kirabo opened her mouth, sucked in air to talk, but closed it. Then she tried again: “Is she alive?”
“Of course she is; did someone say she was not?”
“No, it is just that the war came and went and she did not …” She sighed away the rest of the sentence. “They are sisters?” She creased her face in disgust.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“It just happened. Nnambi did not know Nnakku was your mother when she met your father. Nnakku had cut herself off from Tom. None of us knew she had a child. She and Jjali, her mother, hid it from us.”
Kirabo was jolted. She had problems listening to what the man was saying because her mind was galloping backwards. “But Tom noticed the resemblance and insisted.” The man’s voice came back into focus. “Nnambi came to me to check. I came to see you. I said to Miiro, those eyes, the nose and lips are mine. I went to Nnakku and said, ‘There is a child. She looks like us. The father says you are the mother.’ There was no denying to me. But she told me what she had told your father; she did not want to know you. So, I, Tom the departed, and your grandparents agreed not to tell you.” By now, Kirabo’s mind had not only recovered Jjali Solome with permed hair and Solome Jjali who had helped this man to abuse Nnambi’s mother in the ’50s, but Nnakku, who made Nnambi seem like an angel. She clicked her tongue at her utter blindness. All along, the truth had been so close she had sat on it.
“But do you see how truth will not be hidden?” Miiro was saying. “Of all women in the world, how did Tom end up with Nnakku’s sister?”
The old man paused, then he agreed grudgingly that indeed truth never goes into hiding. “As I was saying, Kirabo, there was no reason to stop Tom from marrying Nnambi. After all, who better to bring up the abandoned child than a sister? In fact, tradition has always sacrificed a sister for one who died for the good of the children. So, in the past, if you died young in marriage and left behind very young children, our family would dispatch Mwagale to carry on with your marriage and bring up your children with your husband. Back then we did not tell children when their mothers died. Why bring pain to them when there is another mother?”
“I have heard,” Miiro said, “that in other cultures men are even forced to marry their dead brothers’ wives for the sake of the children. Can you imagine?”
“We sacrifice whatever is necessary so children can have a mother and a father.”
Kirabo began to think about this sacrifice, but it was much too big for her congested mind.
“Do you not want to know where your mother is?”
She looked up and noticed that the old man was waiting for a response. “Does she want to know how I am?” Kirabo realised too late that she had snapped.
Ssemwaka Kaye sighed. “You must understand that your mother was a child when she had you.”
“Is she still a child?”
The old man looked at Miiro, as if for help. Miiro did not move. Ssemwaka continued, “When you look at the situation properly, I am to blame. I abandoned Nnakku to her mother. As I said, I did not know you had been born. As the father of your mothers, I am trying to make it right.”
“I don’t know.” Kirabo stretched out a numb leg. “This is a bit too much for me right now.” The numbness started to thaw, and fizziness started to cha cha cha in the leg. “First, Nnambi does not want me in my father’s house even though, as you said, she was my mother’s sister and who was best to bring me up. Then I discover that my mother does not want me either because she was a child when she had me. And now my father has died, Nnambi becomes what, my aunt?”
“We could not hold this information now that you don’t have a father.”
“So where is she?”
“In Jinja. She married there. You have a sister and a brother. She works for Save the Children.”
Kirabo laughed. “Save what children?”
“She is not a bad person, just scared. She lives on Kisinja Road, two houses after the ruins. Once you see the ruins, you have arrived. The first thing you will see is the eucalyptus tree. It stands right in the middle of her compound. Her house has black tiles on the roof. It is very easy to find.”
“Well, child,” Miiro said, holding Kirabo’s shoulders, “you don’t have to find her. We are enough, are we not? If love does not come to us, we don’t go chasing after it. We are enough.”
“You never know,” Ssemwaka Kaye said. “As we Ganda say, Mother is sweet.”
Kirabo suppressed something unsavoury about the sweetness of mothers.
“But you must understand, she could not tell her husband she had a child. Being a woman is not easy. Men do not understand.” He turned to Miiro. “We make them pregnant, but we will not marry a girl who has a child. You want to ask, did she have the child with a tree?” The man turned back to Kirabo. “We all kept quiet to give her time. But most of all, no one wished you to feel rejected.”
“What does her husband do?”
“He works for Nile Breweries. His name is Jjumba Luninze.”
“They must be well off then.” Kirabo had hoped poverty had kept her mother away.
He scratched his head. “Well, they are not badly off.”
“Will I not upset her happy family if I turn up?”
“Maybe, but I warned her that I would tell you now your father is gone. Hopefully she will be expecting you.”
“You mean you told Nnakku my father had died but she still did not come to bury him?”
“Ah.” This time, words failed him.
“You know what, Jjajja Ssemwaka? I have no intention of finding her.”
“But I have been talking to Miiro. You must come to Mityana. I must introduce you to the family. You must meet the Ffumbe clan. And then if you change your mind, I will arrange for you to meet your mother.”
Kirabo smiled to herself. Was t
his the Franco whose wife described him as the bearer of the flag for the most contemptuous men in the world? Nothing about him suggested he was capable of such wickedness. How unlucky was Tom to have his children with two evil women from the same family?
Just in time, Aunt Abi came and asked Miiro if they had finished. A friend of hers was leaving for Kampala and would give Kirabo a lift. As Kirabo stood up, Jjajja Ssemwaka slipped a wad of money into her hands. She promised to visit him and his people, then went to the diiro to say goodbye to Grandmother. Nsuuta held her and whispered, “Have they told you?”
“Hmm.”
“Miiro did not want you to know, but we could not protect you any longer.” She paused, then added, “Or Nnakku … because she needed protecting too.”
“And you are going to say that even Nnambi needed protecting.”
“Her too, in a way. I disagree with her methods, but as I told you, with your mothers, their rejection of you should not be taken personally.”
“I don’t care about Nnakku any more, Nsuuta. I set myself free of her a long time ago.”
“That is not true, Kirabo; you will look for her.”
Kirabo made to stand up because people who had never been rejected by a parent were incapable of understanding.
A Girl is a Body of Water Page 34
