African Quilt : 24 Modern African Stories (9781101617441)

by Solomon, Barbara H. (EDT); Rampone, W. Reginald, Jr. (EDT)

  “Listen, people, I brought a friend to meet you. A man.”

  “Where is he?” from James.

  “Bring him in,” from Connie.

  “You know, Sissie, you are a new mother. I thought I’d come and ask you if it’s all right.”

  “Of course,” say James and Connie, and for some reason they are both very nervous.

  “He is Captain Ashley.”

  “Which one?”

  “How many do you know?”

  James still thinks it is impossible. “Eh . . . do you mean the officer who has been appointed the . . . the . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “Wasn’t there a picture in The Crystal over the weekend of his daughter’s wedding? And another one of him with his wife and children and grandchildren?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he is heading a commission to investigate something or other?”

  “Yes.”

  Connie just sits there with her mouth open that wide . . .

  DOREEN BAINGANA

  Doreen Baingana was born in Uganda, one of the nine children of a physician father and a mother who served as Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Commission. She earned a law degree at Makerere University in Uganda and an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland, where she was a writer-in-residence. Her stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, African American Review, Calladoo, and The Guardian. Her short story collection, Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe, won the 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and an AWP Short Fiction Award. An active member of FEMRITE, a Ugandan women writers’ association, she currently lives in Rockville, Maryland.

  First Kiss

  (2005)

  Christine’s romance was one day old. She was going to meet Nicholas again this afternoon. It was a hot empty Sunday in Entebbe, so bright you couldn’t see. She didn’t want anyone to know, but wondered how her sisters, Patti and Rosa, could not sense her excitement. The air itself felt different. Christine lay in bed late into the morning, plotting her escape. Her first date! With a boy! She was fourteen. Nicholas was older, eighteen maybe? Not Nick, or Nicky, but Nicholas. That was classy, she thought.

  Having older sisters made Christine feel and talk older. She learned a lot that her school friends didn’t know, like the words to more than four Jackson Five songs, and that the fashionable narrow trousers were called “pipes.” Christine couldn’t wait for adult things to happen. To wear a bra for a good reason, dance at parties, talk to boys nonchalantly, then giggle over them with her girlfriends. Move to Kampala instead of dying of boredom in Entebbe. But however much she copied her sisters, she still felt smaller, thinner, inadequate.

  Anyway, what would she wear? How would she escape the house without anyone knowing? They would poke their noses into her business, ask her this and that. She had met him, Nicholas, the day before. He was as tall as a windmill. As foreign and familiar as one, too. A boy. No, a man. Help! Christine’s world had been made up of women even before Taata died three years ago. He had been quiet and remote or drunk and to be avoided. Her sisters, mother, and aunts had converged protectively over and around her. In primary school it had been a scandal even to talk to boys; they were alien creatures.

  Nicholas wasn’t a stranger, though; she knew the whole Bajombora family. They had all gone to Lake Victoria Primary School—Lake Vic—once the best school in Entebbe. Back before Uganda’s independence, in the early sixties, it had been for whites only. Some textbooks still had the stamp “The European School.” But by 1973, with Idi Amin’s regime in full force, there were about two bazungu left in the whole school.

  Nicholas’s youngest brother had been in her class. Even though the Bajomboras were always last in class, they were the best dressed in the whole school, with sharply ironed khaki shorts, shirts new and dazzling white, and black shoes so shiny you could see your face in them. Not that she got that close; they were boys! Rough and rude, or should have been. Their shoe heels were never worn down to one side like most of the others’; that was a sign of money. The dumb, handsome Bajombora boys, six of them. They were a deep, dark, smooth black and were all prizes. Although they belonged to Christine’s ethnic group, the Banyankore, they were Catholics, which made them completely different, at least in her mother’s Protestant opinion. To Maama, Catholics were misguided fools, though she never said this, of course, but clearly let it be known by turning down her mouth, raising her eyebrows, and hurrmphing heavily. Don’t even bring up Muslims.

  The day before, when Christine’s sisters were dressing up to go to the Bajomboras’ party, she had asked jokingly, “Can I come?” She was bored. She had spent the whole day in bed reading a Georgette Heyer romance. They were best read all the way through, at once, to keep up the excitement. To keep believing, hoping, fantasizing. Fantasy was so much better than real life. Christine became the plucky heroine waving her fan, singing, “My ship sailed from China / with a cargo of tea . . . ,” as she strolled through spring gardens or the drafty halls of Rossborough Castle. She inevitably fell in love with the hero, the tall, dark (African?) Lord Wimbledon, long before he won the heart of the rebellious witty heroine, Lady Thomasina. She imagined his shapely thighs in tight white knickerbockers, his ponytail long like a pirate’s. No, not a pirate; he was an aristocrat. No one could resist him, not even Lady Thomasina, who had a mind of her own, but no fortune, alas. It was a fun read, but left Christine with a vague feeling of disgust, the same sick satisfaction she felt after eating too many sweet oily kabs.

  Christine was on holiday, which was better than starving at school, but flat. She listened and watched her sisters talking on the phone, going out, working on their figures, doing sit-ups, drinking endless glasses of lemon juice that supposedly were slimming, walking with books on their heads to learn grace, wrapping their hips tight to stop them from growing too big. Rosa and Patti were seventeen and eighteen. They had purpose. Christine read romance novels and napped.

  Rosa brushed away Christine’s plea the way she usually did, as though her sister was a bothersome fly. “Don’t be silly, the party is not for kids. Me, I won’t have time to look after you.”

  Patti, as expected, took Christine’s side. “Bambi, you want to come with us? Why not? But ask Maama first.”

  “Don’t waste your time; she won’t agree. Bannange, who last used the hot comb, and left their bi-hairs in it! Eeeh!”

  Christine found Maama in the sitting room watching a TV play. Ensi Bwetyo—“Life’s Like That”—had run forever. Maama was drinking her usual black tea. Christine’s voice squeaked nervously. “The Pattis said I could go with them to the Bajombora party.”

  “Since when, at your age?” Maama talked to the children in Runyankore, but for some reason they answered her back in English. Probably because they would have been punished at school for speaking their own language.

  “It’s for all ages.”

  “Are you sure?” Maama’s attention was on the TV show; she didn’t want to miss a word. Patti came to Christine’s rescue. “Bambi, let her come. She’ll stay with me full-time.”

  Maama slowly turned her eyes away from the TV and swept her gaze over the two of them, down, up, and back down again, as if she was trying to figure out who they were. She shrugged her shoulders and turned back to the TV, torturing them with time. “Don’t come complaining to me about her afterwards,” she said. Maama never came right out and said yes. That would be too kind; she might get taken advantage of.

  Patti quickly hot-combed Christine’s hair in the kitchen while Rosa complained that the baby would make them late. The heat of the comb close to Christine’s scalp caused delicious shivers of fear down her neck and back. Anticipation felt like a mild fever. She was going to a real party. Katondest! she said over and over again silently. Christine’s feet were already Patti’s size, so she borrowed her sister’s pair of red hig
h heels, with long straps that crisscrossed up the calves. She became Lady Thomasina preparing for a ball. She put on a corduroy pantsuit her aunt brought her a year ago from London. It was getting too small; it pressed into her crotch and squeezed into the crack of her bum, but what else could she wear? At least it was the latest, sort of. She almost twisted her back trying to see her behind in the mirror. Rosa laughed. “No one’s going to notice you, silly!”

  Patti came to Christine’s defense. “Wamma you look good, grown-up.”

  Rosa jeered back, “Kyoka, Patti, you can lie!”

  “How come the Senior Fours borrowed it for two socials last term? It’s still in.” Christine posed dramatically in front of the mirror, one hand on her nonexistent hips.

  “Lie yourself, then! It’s not the trousers that are the problem; it’s your stick figure. Anyway, let’s go!”

  Christine and Patti were used to Rosa’s taunts; they simply ignored her. Patti drew dark eyebrows over Christine’s own and painted her lips deep crimson. Christine was startled by her reflection, and Rosa laughed hysterically. “Don’t let Maama see you!”

  “No one will know she’s fourteen.” Patti was proud of her artwork.

  Forget her face; Christine’s worry was falling off the high heels, since they were walking to the party. It had just turned dark when they set off. The air was bluish, mysterious, and the crickets shrilled urgently, but the girls did not hear them. Each of them dwelt on her own separate excitement. Rosa was going to see Sam, her boyfriend, again. She preferred being with him in public, showing off their love, rather than when they were alone, which time she spent fighting off his roaming hands. That wasn’t romantic. As for Patti, she was saved, but didn’t believe dancing was a sin. She danced for the Lord, she said, like David in the Psalms. Okay, David hadn’t danced “squeeze” with women, but neither did Patti with boys. Nor did she drink. Patti was a little worried about Christine, however, who was more like Rosa, in Patti’s opinion, or at least wanted to be, which could be worse.

  Christine almost fell a number of times in the high red shoes. The tarmac road, which had not been repaired since the late sixties, before Amin took over, was more like a dry riverbed. Most of the tarmac was gone, leaving huge potholes to be skirted around. Luckily it hadn’t rained recently, so there were no pools of muddy water, only empty craters and dusty flyaway soil and stones. Cars that circled off the road to avoid the potholes had widened it, creating yawning mouths with no teeth, only gaping dirty-brown holes. It was safer to walk down the middle to avoid the cars that bumped and swerved along the roadside. It would have been better with no tarmac at all. The girls walked with heads bowed down out of habit, picking their way through unthinkingly. They did not see the solemn indigo beauty of the sky, now glowing with far-off dots of light.

  When they got to the party, Christine hung close to Patti shyly until she saw Betty, the Bajomboras’ cousin, who lived with them. She was two years older than Christine but had repeated classes in primary school, and so had ended up in P.7 with Christine. Betty already had full breasts by then, when everyone else had nothing or only tiny protruding plums that stretched their school uniforms tight across the chest. One year later, at fourteen, Betty got pregnant and had an abortion. It was a major scandal. She was sent to her village, Ibanda, for a year. She came back subdued, fat, and very shera, you could tell her tribe right away. She said mwana all the time, and walked as slowly and as heavily as a cow. Well, that was considered graceful among the village Banyankore. Christine had seen Betty only twice since that time, by accident, but was so glad to see her now, especially since she didn’t want to trail after Patti like a five-year-old. Betty looked like a woman, but, thank goodness, she didn’t brush her off.

  Betty gave Christine whisky mixed with Mirinda to cut the sour taste and hide the alcohol. Christine didn’t say she had never drunk whisky before. She was surprised by how it burnt going down, not like pepper, but like glowing warm fire. The two girls danced together; they could do that, they were young enough. But then some strange boy called Betty outside, pointing with his head, and off she went. Too willingly, Christine thought. She was alone again. She was supposed to be having fun with other people; that’s what parties were for. Luckily or unluckily, Patti saw Christine and asked one of the Bajombora boys, Nicholas, to dance with her. He looked drunk, and smiled at Christine like he was doing her a favor. It was a Congolese song, and it seemed to last forever. The dance was simple, dull, and repetitive: one step left, then back, another right and back, left, right, with an accompanying jiggle of the hips. Nicholas danced in his own stiff way, frowning with concentration. It made her smile. He noticed and smiled back, then said, “You’re a good dancer,” leaning over her as if he was about to topple. He was tall, tall. The Leaning Tower of Nicholas. She smiled at her own joke and stumbled on his foot. “Enough,” he laughed. “Let’s have a drink.”

  “Not in front of my sisters.”

  “Outside, then.”

  They sat on a low branch of a huge old mango tree. It wasn’t mango season, but the leaves were heavy and reassuring, a dark green umbrella for everyone, a rich auntie. Christine wondered where all the ants that crawled the craggy bark of every mango tree went to at night. Nicholas had put more whisky than Mirinda into Christine’s drink. It burned her throat and brought tears to her eyes. She forced it down with a cough. Then it seemed like a bright light turned itself on in her head as they sat in the warm clear dark. The stars, which she usually didn’t notice, twinkled in an exaggerated way through her tears. Christine stopped herself from showing him the sky; that would be silly, but she bet Lady Thomasina would have. What next? Nicholas lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. He didn’t say anything. But somehow, casually, his arm went over her shoulder. He put out his cigarette on the branch; then his face closed in and his lips were on hers. “My lipstick!” she thought, as he chewed away at her lips, then snaked his tongue into her mouth and ate some more. His smoky smell reminded her of her father. Soon, she couldn’t breathe, didn’t know how to, but just in time, he broke away. “Nice,” he said, as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She jumped off the branch. “Wait, don’t go,” he said.

  “Patti will be looking for me.”

  “Okay, why not meet me tomorrow? Christine?”

  She cleared her throat. The whisky, or something, was bubbling in her brain.

  “Where?”

  “How about at Lake Vic? The school, not the hotel. In front of the Assembly Hall, okay? Around two?”

  “Okay.”

  So that was kissing. That was it? She couldn’t decide if it was yucky or nice. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Would Lady Thomasina be this confused? Would Rosa? Christine had been kissed before Patti, she was sure. Her head felt foggy. Was it the whisky, Nicholas, or both? What if Maama smelt her breath? But he wanted to see her again. To kiss her some more!

  * * *

  So there was Christine the next morning daydreaming in bed, and panicking too. It was already eleven, but staying in bed was about the only way to be alone in the shared room. What would she wear? Should she put on lipstick again? Nicholas must have liked the red. Her lips’ natural color was a pinkish brown, which just wouldn’t do. And what if she looked completely different without her eyebrows drawn over? Should she wear her blue jean skirt, or the yellow lace dress? No, it was too frilly; she’d look like a baby. But she couldn’t borrow clothes from Rosa or Patti without being asked a million questions. Imagine, she had a date, and with an older man! Well, okay, a boy, but still a date. Look at her fingernails, bitten short and ugly. Had he noticed them yesterday? She hoped not.

  One could never tell what was going to happen. The future, the not-yet. It was like reading a book. But with a book, the delicious end was right there in your hands; all you had to do was read and not peek ahead, and you’d get to it. Of course, with romance novels you already kn
ew that the Lord would get the Lady, or was it vice versa? How, was the question, the thrill. In real life, the future didn’t exist. You could try and make it up as you went along, like how you put on makeup deliberately, but when other people were involved, there was no way you could tell what they would do. You couldn’t control them. They might turn away, or prefer sad endings.

  Luckily for Christine, Maama had gone to the neighbors; Mrs. Mukasa was sewing her a dress. Patti had been sent to line up for sugar. Rumor was that one store in Kitoro had some; the owner’s son was in the army. Rosa had refused to go. She spent her afternoons “borrowing books,” which they all knew meant seeing Sam. That day, Christine was supposed to clean the living room, which she did quickly. She ate leftover cassava and beans for lunch, enjoying the rarely still, empty house, then bathed and dressed up, slowly, deliberately. She chose the blue jean skirt; it was casual but looked good. She wore a red top to match Patti’s red shoes, which she borrowed again for good luck. There. Christine went out through the back door to the boys’ quarters, where Akiki, the housegirl, was resting. Christine called out through her closed door, “Akiki, the house is empty. I’m off to Betty’s,” and rushed away before Akiki could get up and see her all dressed up.

  Christine slowed down once she got to the street. She was sweating already. Why did Nicholas choose the afternoon? It would have been cooler later on, and the evening light more romantic. Christine giggled and practiced a womanly sway. The high heels definitely made her more feminine, though unbalanced. She smoothed her jean skirt over her still small hips. Was it the heat or this escapade that was making her leak sweat like a broken tap? Under a jacaranda tree by the side of the road, she got a small mirror, Patti’s, from her bag, rubbed on Patti’s lipstick, then walked on.

  Everything was asleep; the road was dead, even the flies were too lazy and drunk with heat to do more than flop around. The sun was Christine’s relentless witness. She reached the huge roundabout in front of Lake Vic, but had to walk around it because the grass was overgrown. Back when she and her school friends passed by every day on their way to school, they would find groups of five or six women hired by the Entebbe Town Council cutting the grass with long thin slashers. The women were always busy because the grass grew back as fast as ever. Poor women; during Amin’s “economic war” they were paid next to nothing. It now looked like the council had long given up the fight with nature. The grass, ignoring the emergency situation, kept on growing.