The smell of cow urine and dung had not changed. It met her in the same place it used to and welcomed her into Kisoga. But Kisoga had changed. There was a stability about it. The labourers’ huts had been replaced by permanent houses with iron roofs. Perhaps the death of cash crops as a result of the embargoes during Amin’s regime had freed them to think beyond labouring on Miiro’s shambas. Maybe the new law which made it illegal for landlords to evict squatters had given them confidence to build permanent houses and settle. But history sat everywhere on everything, howling. The fact that only labourers lived here. The fact it was called Kisoga was suspicious. Had the Ssoga people after whom the village was named come of their own free will? Now she felt tears in the agitation of leaves, sweat in the sad bend of the bushes, blood in the silence of the hills.
When Giibwa’s mother saw her, her face tightened. Kirabo ignored it because humans are like that; they turn their shame into anger. Nonetheless, she knelt and greeted her. She asked for Giibwa. Giibwa’s mother led her into the house and gave her a folding chair, the one referred to as mwasa jutte because it was so hard it would burst a boil.
•
Giibwa took her time coming. When she did, she showed neither remorse nor relief. She looked Kirabo up and down as if it was Kirabo who had cheated with her man. Kirabo, desperate to establish that she had not come for confrontation, smiled. “Hello, Giibwa.”
Giibwa mumbled something, refusing to meet her eye.
“I have come to talk. Let us talk like fellow women.”
Giibwa sat down, her eyes saying Go on, it is your own time you are wasting.
“Giibwa,” Kirabo started, “we were friends long before Sio came along. I accept we fought and said horrible things to each other, but we were children and always made up. But this hate is wrong. My Grandmother and Nsuuta were once so close that what you and I were is nothing compared. But for years they feuded. Now that Tom is no more, they realise. But it is too late because even Nsuuta is on her way. I am not happy about what happened, but if I am to forgive Sio then I should forgive you too.” She paused. When Giibwa did not respond, Kirabo continued, “I realise that when you got pregnant it was you who suffered, not Sio. I know your child has been taken from you and I think that is unfair. But I can talk to Sio and make him see sense. He says that when I and he get together, Abla will come back and live with us. But I think you should be included in making that decision. Either way, I do not want us to be enemies. It will not be good for Abla. I would like to love your child and maybe become her second mother in future. Not because Sio or culture say so, but because you and I have agreed.”
“Kirabooo, Kirabo.” Giibwa sighed exhaustion. “Fellow woman? Me and you? How? Look, not all women are women. Some women, like you, are men. You go to school, get degrees, then get jobs and employ women like me to be women for you at home. Some women, like me, are children. I cannot even be trusted with my own child.” She looked above Kirabo’s head as if someone had arrived, but then carried on. “We are no longer children, you and I, when we pretended to be the same. You are Miiro’s grandchild, I am the daughter of his labourer. You will be the wife of a big man. And I will be what, your maid? Even that Sio of yours”—she pointed to the door and Kirabo turned. Sio stood at the door. Kirabo frowned When did you come? at him, but Giibwa was talking—“offered to pay my fees to finish my course so his child does not have an illiterate mother, but I refused. Perhaps even my child will grow up to be ashamed of her housemaid mother, I don’t know. But what I do know is that I am tired of being helped. Nsuuta and your grandmother made up because they are the same. One was a Muluka’s daughter, the other a daughter of a reverend. They both went to school. They understand each other. Me and you, our relationship is lopsided. But for how long shall it go on, for how many generations? Me, I decided to break it.”
By sleeping with my man. Kirabo suppressed the thought. “But Giibwa, we grew up together, I know your world, you know mine. My grandmother says, ‘You see these fingers’”—Kirabo held up her hand—“‘they are not the same but they work together.’”
“That is an interesting one coming from you, Kirabo. Especially as the four female fingers are not equal to the male one, which rules the hand. But for me the problem is not that the male finger rules the hand; it is the fact that the four female ones are not equal.”
“Come, Kirabo.” Sio reached for her hand. “You have done your best to reconcile when we are the ones who wronged you. Giibwa is incapable of remorse.”
Kirabo took Sio’s hand and stood up. Still she tried again: “What happened to you, Giibwa, why are you like this?”
“Got tired of being the little finger; tired of you people having power over us.”
“Who has power over you?”
“She asks,” Giibwa laughed cynically. “We live on your land; one word to your grandfather and we are evicted. The other day the herdsman showed us the cows and goats your grandfather gave you for studying hard. They all have calves and kids. By the time you finish university and he gives you even more, you will have a whole herd. I said, yii, but these people: Kirabo has not started working, but wealth is piling for her? Next, you will be ordering that herdsman like he is your boyi.” Now Giibwa, one hand on a hip, the other waving about in a classic Kirabo posture, said, “Why are my calves so thin, hmm?” She turned to Sio. “Did you know Luutu’s house and land are hers too?” Sio did not look at her. Kirabo owning land and an ancient house meant nothing to him. “So Kirabo, thank you for trying, but we cannot talk like fellow women, you and I.”
“Okay, Giibwa, if that is how you want to be.” Kirabo walked out.
Sio hurried after her. “Kirabo, you need to accept that Giibwa does not like you any more. Look, she even warned me against you.”
“Warned you?”
“Apparently,” Sio said, rubbing the small of her back, where her pain tended to be worst, “you and the blind woman did witchcraft.”
“What?” Kirabo frowned. “Giibwa, oh Giibwa. She is like Nnakku—relentless.”
“Maybe,” Sio suggested, “you and I being together would make life less daunting. Where you don’t see, I can, and where I don’t understand, you help me. Slowly by slowly, we would figure out what to do with your mother and Giibwa.” He paused, waiting for Kirabo to respond. When she did not, he continued, “I could say that maybe, eventually, when your anger has melted, you would see that Nnakku perhaps had no alternative but to deny she had a child.”
They walked for a while, silent, heading towards Nattetta. Kirabo’s hand sought Sio’s. On impulse she stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Maybe.”
At the sight of Nnankya the stream, Kirabo skipped ahead. She felt the urge to greet the spirit. But she was not going to let Sio see her talk to a stream. She walked along the bank until she came to the part where she used to cross. The water was so murky she could not see the fish. It was higher than usual, rapid and loud. The greeting stuck in her throat. Calling streams clanswomen is how myths are validated, she told herself. But her eyes sought the stepping stones. They were submerged. She looked around for a stick to poke them out with but there was none. Kirabo sucked her teeth regretfully and walked back towards the bridge.
13
It was coming to two when Kirabo arrived at Miiro’s house and Sio carried on to Kamuli. Grandfather was at the back of the house listening to O Mugga Wakati, a Luganda adaptation of The River Between on Radio Uganda. Three children between eight and eleven years old sat around the radio with him, listening. Kirabo did not recognise them. She wondered where her grandparents had picked them up from. Probably, they had come for the last rites and not gone back home. She could hear Grandmother say to someone from Timiina, “If you are struggling, our house is empty—we have good schools close by.”
After greeting her, Grandfather told her that Nsuuta had relapsed. Grandmother had gone down the road to take her lunch and give her a bath. Kirabo asked why Nsuuta had gone back to her house when it was agr
eed before that she would move in with them. Miiro clicked his tongue. “When she relapsed, Nsuuta’s obstinacy came back. She hates herself. She does not want help. She wants to die in her house.” Grandmother, Grandfather, Diba, and sometimes Ssozi’s wives took turns at sleeping at Nsuuta’s house to make sure she slept fine in the night.
Kirabo got up to make her way to Nsuuta’s. First, she crossed the road to greet Ssozi and his family. By the time she got to where the koparativu stowa used to be, the sky had turned dark. Wind was in haste. As she turned into Nsuuta’s courtyard the clouds started to spit sparse but sturdy gobs. They hit the ground hard and dried promptly. The earth emitted that delicious but fleeting scent, the one when the rain first touches it. She closed her eyes, but by the time she tilted her head to suck it, the wind had whipped it away. Then rain came down as if being chased. She ran. Before she got to the door she called, “Abeeno?”
Grandmother’s face came to the door. “Kirabo. Come in, come in, before you get wet. When did you arrive?” She hugged her. “Have you eaten?” The rest of her words were muted by the sudden raucousness of rain on the roof. Nsuuta and Grandmother had just finished having lunch. Or rather Grandmother had; Nsuuta had not touched hers. She lay on the mattress in the living room, close to the side wall where there was no window. She said something but Kirabo did not hear the words. Kirabo knelt by her mattress, held her hand, and rubbed her cheek on Nsuuta’s. Nsuuta was emaciated. It did not make sense how quickly she had deteriorated. Kirabo sat down in the place Nsuuta used to sit, and stared through the door into the road.
A gust burst forth. The branches of the guava tree near the road whipped the air. Nsuuta’s goats, tethered on the fringes of the compound, stood still. The iron sheets on Nsuuta’s kitchen threatened to fly off. The storm was like a straying husband who, on returning home, tends to overdo his gestures of affection. It stopped, hushed.
Nsuuta’s voice came: “Help me up,” and she felt for Kirabo’s hands in the air. Kirabo sat her up. “I want to go in the rain.”
“What?”
“Hurry up before it starts again.”
Kirabo looked at Grandmother, but she said, “Help her undress.”
“You are not serious.” Nsuuta was so skeletal the storm would blow her away.
Another gust hit the house, sending window shutters flying back and forth. She heard the muvule, close to where the koparativu stowa used to be, groan. The angles of the iron sheets on Nsuuta’s kitchen roof curved inwards. And then it stopped, clean, silent. Kirabo was mesmerised. Rain in Nattetta seemed so theatrical. Tiled roofs in the city muted the drama.
“Get her a towel.” Grandmother’s voice was loud in the hush. “It is hanging on the door in the back room.”
When she returned, Nsuuta’s busuuti had fallen around her waist. The only thing remaining on her body was the left breast. It had swelled lumpily. The skin around the areola was punctured with tiny, tiny prick holes. The nipple had been sucked into the areola. Her chest was pale, but the breast was grey and askew, as if it grew towards the armpit. Grandmother wrapped a towel around her and ordered, “Get her slippers.” When Kirabo brought them, Grandmother was helping Nsuuta on to her feet. The busuuti fell around her ankles. “Take a stool outside to the back yard for her before the rain comes back.”
As Kirabo returned, the rain hit again: Grandmother used gestures to communicate. Nsuuta pushed her feet into her thong slippers. Grandmother and Kirabo held Nsuuta around the waist while she slung around their necks. They walked her from the diiro through the back room and paused at the door, watching the rain intensify. Kirabo looked at Grandmother. Nsuuta must have felt her misgivings for she said, “Hurry up,” her hands impatient around their shoulders. Grandmother removed the towel from Nsuuta and told Kirabo to go and light a fire in the kitchen. Instead, Kirabo looked around the back yard as if anyone might be watching through Nsuuta’s mpaanyi hedge in that torrent.
Grandmother led Nsuuta into the rain. At the first sting, Nsuuta swore upon her grandmother, Naigaga. Then she smiled up at Grandmother like a brave child. She felt for the stool. When she got to it, she let go of Grandmother. By the time she was settled on the stool, the upper part of Grandmother’s busuuti clung to her skin. She gave Nsuuta a cake of soap. Nsuuta waved Grandmother out of the rain, but Grandmother hesitated. Nsuuta rubbed soap in her hair, on her arms, stomach, and legs, then dropped the soap on the grass. Grandmother watched her for a few more seconds, then stepped back on the verandah. The wind blew the rain and Nsuuta shrieked, arms in the air, like a little girl. Grandmother stepped into the back room, away from the gusts, her busuuti dripping on the floor.
“Why not change into one of Nsuuta’s busuuti?” Kirabo suggested.
“I will get wet again when I go to get her,” Grandmother said, but she watched Nsuuta with such love.
Kirabo had turned her attention to Nsuuta when Grandmother stepped away from the door. She did not say Look away, Kirabo; I am undressing, as she used to when Kirabo was young, but Kirabo was aware of her stripping her clothing layer by layer—the sash, the busuuti, the string that fastened the kikoy, the kikoy, bra, petticoat, and finally, knickers. Next thing Kirabo saw was Grandmother flying past, naked as a newborn and jumping into the rain. Nsuuta looked up and shrieked, “Yeee,” as if she had seen her. Grandmother ran along the hedge skipping and jumping. Kirabo looked back to where her grandmother had stripped. Her clothes lay in a heap. An intense sensation dried her mouth, as if she had caught her grandmother doing witchcraft. Nsuuta’s warning about women’s nakedness came, but Kirabo’s sense of shame held her prisoner. This was her grandmother running naked, not some girl in St. Theresa’s. Grandmother skipped and danced and threw her arms in the air, yelping. Kirabo looked over the back yard again to make sure no one else had seen them, then she stepped away to go and light the fire.
By the time the fire caught and she had added bigger pieces of firewood, the grip of shame had relaxed. Logic started to return. Grandmother has nakedness. You can look at her. Grandmother is human. She has desires, like running naked in the rain. Shame on you; Grandmother does not need a reason to strip and run naked in the rain. You are one of them. Nsuuta wasted her time talking to you. She prayed Grandmother had not seen her shame.
When she got back to the back door, Nsuuta was standing unaided. Her head was thrown back, her mouth open. Rain fell into her mouth. She closed it, lifted her head, and swallowed. Then she threw it back again and opened her mouth. Grandmother danced as she washed the soap out of her face. This is exactly why ancients came up with a Nnamazzi from the sea, Kirabo thought. When Grandmother saw Kirabo at the door, she stopped playing. As if she had remembered that she was a grandmother. Kirabo waved and smiled, but Grandmother got a foam sponge, rubbed soap into it, and started to rub Nsuuta’s neck, back, arms, legs, and then, carefully, her chest. Nsuuta kept rubbing rainwater out of her face and stamping her feet. Even though the rain was still heavy, Grandmother took a basin and drew water from a barrel. She called in English, “Ready?”
“Yes.”
Grandmother threw half the water over Nsuuta’s back. Nsuuta squealed and stamped, swearing upon Naigaga as if she was a goddess.
“Turn around.”
Nsuuta turned and Grandmother threw the rest of the water over her lower front. Nsuuta stomped her feet, flailing her arms. Grandmother went back to the barrel for more. This time she poured it down Nsuuta’s head slowly. Nsuuta gasped and gasped, shaking her head and trying to scream, but she had to catch her breath.
Kirabo bit back the tears.
Grandmother took a loofah sponge, rubbed in soap, and scrubbed herself. She finished and scrubbed the insides of both their slippers. She helped sit Nsuuta down on the stool and scrubbed her feet with a kikongoliro, a burnt maize cob. She helped Nsuuta into her slippers. Then she unplaited the knots in her hair, rubbed soap in, and lathered. But instead of pouring water on herself to rinse the soap out, she let the rain run down on her. She stretched her a
rms above her head and stood on her toes, as if to touch the sky. She looked at Kirabo and laughed. Grandmother’s teeth were ridiculously white and neat. Then the gap in her upper front teeth, which she had never shared with her progeny. She brought her arms down and tried to touch the ground with her palms, like an athlete stretching. Then she stretched backwards. It was awkward because bending backwards was not easy. It was as if she was reaching into the past to retrieve something. That was when Kirabo began to see her grandmother’s body. A woman’s body, like hers in every way except age. Her skin, from the shoulders down to the legs, was younger and lighter and smoother than her arms, neck, and face. A rectangular patch, the neckline of the busuuti, had formed on her chest and back. Her breasts looked twenty years younger. Her stomach, though small, shook jelly-like when she stamped. Two thin folds of skin had formed in the ribs. Funny, her pubis was not grey like her hair; it was brown, as if dyed with henna. Her legs were skinny but no longer tight. Now, her arms spread out, she twirled round, round, and Kirabo feared she would trip. That is Alikisa, Kirabo told herself. She was once a girl. The Alikisa who Grandmother had stifled under the layers of grandmotherhood and motherhood and Muka Miirohood. For a moment Kirabo was tempted to strip and join Nsuuta and this Alikisa, but it did not feel right. She was not part of their past. Besides, she was on her period. She stepped away from the door and into the living room. The belief at St. Theresa’s was that every girl needs that girlfriend, nfa-nfe, for whom she would prise open the crack of her buttocks to check the pain up there without worrying about the ugliness. Because only a woman knows how to love a woman properly. Nsuuta brought Alikisa out of Grandmother. Kirabo was thankful for Atim. They understood each other without language, without complication. Even Nnakku had trusted her ugliest secret to Leeya. She hoped that Giibwa had found someone else.
A Girl is a Body of Water Page 40
