Let's Tell This Story Properly

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  ‘They are in the safe deposit.’

  ‘Are they in his name?’

  ‘Am I stupid?’

  Nnam closed her eyes. ‘Thanks Father thanks Father thanks thank you.’

  He did not reply.

  ‘When was the rent last paid?’

  ‘Three weeks ago; where are you?’

  ‘Don’t touch it, Father,’ she said. ‘We’re in Ndeeba. We’re not spending any more money on this funeral. His family will bury him; I don’t care whether they stuff him into a hole. They’re taking him to Nsangi.’

  ‘Nsangi? That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Not to us either.’

  When Nnam switched off the phone she said to her brothers, ‘The house is safe,’ as if they had not heard. ‘Now they can hold the vigil in a cave if they please.’

  The brothers did not respond.

  ‘When we get there’—there was life in Nnam’s voice now—‘you will find out what’s going on; I’ll be in the car. Then you will take me back to town: I need to go to a good salon and pamper myself. Then I’ll get a good busuuti and dress up. I am not the widow any more.’

  ‘There is no need—’ Meya began.

  ‘I said I am going to a salon to do my hair, my nails and my face. But first I’ll have a bath and a good meal. We’ll see about the vigil later.’

  Then she laughed as if she was demented.

  ‘I’ve just remembered’—she coughed and hit her chest to ease it—‘when we were young’—she swallowed hard—‘remember how people used to say that we Ganda women are property-minded? Apparently, when a husband dies unexpectedly, the first thing you do is to look for the titles of ownership, contracts, car logbook and keys and all such things. You wrap them tight in a cloth and wear them as a sanitary towel. When they are safe between your legs, you let off a rending cry, Bazze wange!’

  Her brothers laughed nervously.

  ‘As soon as I realised that my house was threatened—pshooo!’ She made a gesture of wind whizzing over her head. ‘Grief, pain, shock—gone.’

  • • •

  As the red brick double-storeyed house in Nsangi came into view, Nnam noted with trepidation that the hedge and compound had been taken good care of. When the van containing the coffin drove in, Kayita’s people, excitable, surrounded it. The women cried their part with clout. Kayita’s wife’s wail stood out: a lament for a husband who had died alone in the cold. The crying was like a soundtrack to Kayita’s coffin being offloaded and carried into the house. But then the noise receded: Nnam had just confirmed that Kayita’s wife had been the tenant all along. She had met her. Kayita had been paying his wife’s rent with Nnam’s money. Nnam held her mouth in disbelief.

  ‘Kayita was not a thief: he was a murderer.’ She twisted her mouth again.

  Even then, the heart is a coward—Nnam’s confidence crumbled as her brothers stepped out of the car. Travelling was over. The reality of her situation stared straight in her face. Her sisters arrived too. They came and sat in the car with her. Her father, the boys, her uncles and aunts parked outside the compound. They were advised not to get out of their cars. The situation stared in Nnam’s face without blinking.

  People walked in and out of her house while she was frightened of stepping out of the car. She did not even see an old man come to the car. He had bent low and was peering inside when she noticed him. He introduced himself as Kayita’s father. He addressed Nnam:

  ‘I understand you are the woman who has been living with my son in London.’

  ‘Manchester,’ one of Nnam’s sisters corrected rudely.

  ‘Manchester, London, New York, they are like flies to me: I can’t tell male from female.’ The old man turned back to Nnam. ‘You realise Kayita had a wife.’ Before Nnam answered he carried on, ‘Can you to allow her to have this last moment with her husband with dignity? We do not expect you to advertise your presence. The boys, however, we accept. We will need to show them to the clan when you are ready.’

  The sisters were speechless. Nnam watched the man walk back to her house.

  The two friends from Manchester arrived and came to the car where Nnam sat. At that point, Nnam decided to confront her humiliation. She looked in the eyes of her friends and explained the details of Kayita’s deception the way a doctor explains the extent of infection to a patient. There was dignity in her explaining it to them herself.

  • • •

  There is nothing much to clean in the kitchen, but she pulls out all the movable appliances to clean out the accumulated grime and rubbish. Under the sink, hidden behind the shopping bags, is Kayita’s mug. Nnam bought it on their fifth wedding anniversary—WORLD’S BEST HUSBAND. She takes it to the front door and puts it into a bin. On top of the upper cabinets are empty tins of Quality Street that Kayita treated himself to at Christmas. Kayita had a sweet tooth: he loved muffins, ice cream, ginger nuts and eclairs. He hoarded the tins, saying that one day they would need them. Nnam smiles as she takes the tins to the front door—Kayita’s tendency to hoard things now makes sense.

  • • •

  Nnam, her friends and family returned to the funeral around 11 p.m. Where she sat, she could observe Kayita’s wife. The woman looked old enough to be her mother. That observation, rather than giving her satisfaction, stung. Neither the pampering, the expensive busuuti and jewellery, nor the British airs that she wore could keep away the pain that Kayita had remained loyal to such a woman. It dented her well-choreographed air of indifference. Every time she looked at his wife, it was not jealousy that wrung her heart: it was the whisper You were not good enough.

  Just then, Nnam’s aunt, the one who had prepared her for marriage, came to whisper tradition. She leaned close and said, ‘When a husband dies, you must wear a sanitary towel immediately. As he is wrapped for burial, it is placed on his genitals so that he does not return for—’

  ‘Fuck that shit!’

  ‘I was only—’

  ‘Fuck it,’ Nnam did not bother with Luganda.

  The aunt melted away.

  • • •

  As more of Nnam’s relations arrived, so did a gang of middle-aged women. Nnam did not know who had invited them. One thing was clear, though: they were angry. Apparently Nnam’s story was common. They had heard about her plight and had come to her aid. The women looked like former nkuba kyeyo—the broom-swinging economic immigrants to the West. They were dressed expensively. They mixed Luganda and English as if the languages were sisters. They wore weaves or wigs. Their make-up was defiant as if someone had dared to tell them off. Some were bleached. They unloaded crates of beer and cartons of Uganda Waragi. They brought them to the tent where Nnam sat with her family and started sharing them out. One of them came to her and asked, ‘You are the Nnameya from Manchester?’ She had a raspy voice like she loved her Waragi.

  Nnam nodded and the woman leaned closer.

  ‘If you want to do the crying widow thing, go ahead, but leave the rest to us.’

  ‘Do I look like I am crying?’

  The woman laughed triumphantly. It was as if she had been given permission to do whatever she wanted to do. Nnam decided that the gang were businesswomen, perhaps single mothers, wealthy and bored.

  Just then a cousin of Nnam’s arrived. It was clear she carried burning news. She sat next to Nnam and whispered, ‘Yours are the only sons.’ She rubbed her hands gleefully, as if Nnam had just won the lottery. She turned her head and pointed with her mouth towards Kayita’s widow. ‘Hers are daughters only.’

  Nnam smiled. She turned and whispered to her family, ‘Lumumba is the heir: our friend has no sons,’ and a current of joy rippled through the tent as her family passed on the news.

  At first the gang of women mourned quietly, drinking their beer and enquiring about Britain as if they had come to the vigil out of goodness towards Kayita. At around two o’clock, when the choir got tired, one of the women stood up.

  ‘Fellow mourners,’ she started in a gentle voice as if she
was bringing the good tidings of resurrection.

  A reverent hush fell over the mourners.

  ‘Let’s tell this story properly.’ She paused. ‘There is another woman in this story.’

  Stunned silence.

  ‘There are also two innocent children in the story.’

  ‘Amiina mwattu.’ The amens from the gang could have been coming from evangelists.

  ‘But I’ll start with the woman’s story.’

  According to her, the story started when Nnam’s parents sent her to Britain to study and better herself. She had worked hard and studied and saved but along came a liar and a thief.

  ‘She was lied to,’ the woman with a raspy voice interrupted impatiently. She stood up as if the storyteller was ineffectual. ‘He married her—we have the pictures, we have the video, he even lied to her parents—look at that shame!’

  ‘Come on,’ the interrupted woman protested gently. ‘I was unwrapping the story properly: you are tearing into it.’

  ‘Sit down: we don’t have all night,’ the raspy woman said.

  The gentle woman sat down. The other mourners were still dumbfounded by the women’s audacity.

  ‘A clever person asks,’ the raspy woman carried on, ‘where did Kayita get the money to build such a house when he was just broom-swinging in Britain? Then you realise that ooooh, he’s married a rich woman, a proper lawyer in Manchester.’

  ‘How does she know all that?’ Nnam whispered to her family.

  ‘Hmmm, words have legs.’

  ‘He told her that he was not married but this wife here knew what was going on,’ the woman was saying. ‘Does anyone here know the shock this woman is going through? No, why? Because she is one of those women who emigrated? For those who do not know, this is her house built with her money. I am finished.’

  There was clapping as she sat down and grabbed her beer. The mourning ambiance of the funeral had now turned to the excitement of a political rally.

  ‘Death came like a thief.’ A woman with a squeaky voice stood up. ‘It did not knock to alert Kayita. The curtain blew away, and what filth!’

  ‘If this woman had not fought hard to bring Kayita home, the British would have burnt him. They don’t joke. They have no space to waste on unclaimed bodies. But has anyone had the grace to thank her? No. Instead, Kayita’s father tells her to shut up. What a peasant!’

  The gang had started throwing words about haphazardly. It could turn into throwing insults. An elder came to calm them down.

  ‘You have made your point, mothers of the nation, and I add it is a valid point because, let’s face it, he lied to her and, as you say, there are two innocent children involved.’

  ‘But first let us see the British wife,’ a woman interrupted him. ‘Her name is Nnameya. Let the world see the woman this peasant family has used like arse wipes.’

  Nnam did not want to stand up, but she did not want to seem ungrateful for the women’s effort. She stood up, head held high.

  ‘Come.’ A drunk woman grabbed her hand and led her through the mourners into the sitting room. ‘Look at her,’ she said to Kayita’s family.

  The mourners, even those who had been at the back of the house, had come to stare at Nnam. She looked away from the coffin because tears were letting down her hold your head high stance.

  ‘Stealing from me I can live with, but what about my children?’

  At that moment, the gang’s confrontational attitude fell away and they shook their heads and wiped their eyes and sucked their teeth,

  ‘The children indeed…Abaana maama…yii yii but men also…this lack of choice to whom you’re born to…who said men are human…’

  The vigil had turned in favour of Nnam.

  It was then that Nnam’s eyes betrayed her. She glanced at the open coffin. There is no sight more revolting than a corpse caught telling lies.

  • • •

  Nnam is in the lounge. She has finished cleaning. She takes all the photographs that had been on the walls—wedding, birthdays, school portraits, Christmases—and sorts them out. All the pictures taken before Kayita’s death, whether he is in the picture or not, are separated from the others. She throws them in the bin bag and ties it. She takes the others to the bedroom. She gets her nightgown and covers her nakedness. Then she takes the bin with the pictures to the front door. She opens the door and the freshness of the air outside hits her. She ferries all the bin bags outside, one by one, and places them below the chute’s mouth. She throws down the smaller bags first. They drop as if in a new long drop latrine—the echo is delayed. She breaks the cabinet and drops the bits down. Finally, she stuffs the largest bag, the one with the pictures, down the chute’s throat. The chute chokes. Nnam goes back to the house and brings back a mop. In her mind, her father’s recent words are still ringing:

  ‘We can’t throw them out of the house just like that. There are four innocent children in that house and Lumumba, being Kayita’s eldest son, has inherited all of them. Let’s not heap that guilt on his shoulders.’

  She uses the handle to dig at the bag. After a while of the photo frames and glass breaking, the bin bag falls through. When she comes back to the house, the smell of paint is overwhelming. She takes the mop to the kitchen and washes her hands. Then she opens all the windows and the wind blows the curtains wildly. She takes off the gown and the cool wind blows on her bare skin. She closes her eyes and raises her arms. The sensation of wind on her skin, of being naked, of the silence in a clean house is so overwhelming she does not cry.

  Love Made in Manchester

  Airport Diaries, 2016–18

  POONAH WAS AT THE CIVIC CENTRE in Oldham when Kayla rang. Not to ask her to babysit little Napule as usual, but to meet up. Poonah said she could do three o’clock. Kayla suggested they meet at the Town Hall, in the Sculpture Hall Cafe on the ground floor. Before she put down the phone, Poonah asked, ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ Kayla said, ‘We’ll talk.’ That had made Poonah’s heart race. The Ugandan woman in her imagined the worst—Wakhooli was playing up. She would kill him if he wrecked their marriage.

  When Poonah arrived at the cafe, Kayla had already ordered. They hugged.

  ‘How’s social work?’

  Poonah shrugged: same old, same old, and instead commented on the Town Hall. ‘Wow, this is one handsome building.’ She looked up. ‘That’s some serious craft on the ceiling. Very olde England.’

  ‘Not that old, 1800s. You should see the first floor, dead stunning.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Me, me mum and dad and me sisters, Freya and Athol, used to come here when we was little. It’s open to visitors on certain days of the week if you’re interested.’

  ‘I’ll definitely visit.’ Poonah was fascinated by European architecture, from prehistoric to contemporary. Whenever she got a chance to go to London, she spent a day on those hop-on hop-off tour buses just to ogle the buildings in Central London. ‘Before I return home, I’ll travel across Europe just to see buildings, can’t wait to see those great Russian palaces.’

  She ordered a tuna sandwich and tea, then asked Kayla what the matter was.

  ‘It’s Masaaba.’

  Poonah sat back. If it was the son playing up, that she could handle. But Masaaba was not playing up like normal British teenagers—he wanted to be circumcised traditionally.

  Poonah threw back her head and laughed. A helpless rib-hurting laugh. When she took a breath, she saw Kayla’s eyes and stopped. ‘You’re kidding me, Kayla.’

  Kayla shook her head.

  ‘But how did he even know about imbalu?’

  ‘YouTube?’

  ‘Does he know what actually happens, I mean, what really happens?’

  ‘Wakhooli’s told him. But he had already told his frickin’ friends at school and there’s this dare and one of them’s gone and put it online.’

  Poonah pictured Masaaba—basketball, manga comics, huge afro, KFC, metrosexual. He would collapse at the sight of the knife.
‘Tell him it’s done in public, the entire world watching. Tell him, you’re covered in a paste of millet flour, standing still, no blinking, no shaking. Tell him they don’t just cut the foreskin, there’s a second layer: they don’t like it either.’

  ‘He’s like, If Ugandan boys can do it, so can I. Now the dare’s spread online.’

  ‘Pull it, say it was a hoax.’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘Tsk.’ Poonah was dismissive. ‘Don’t worry; he’ll change his mind.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t? What would you do?’

  ‘Me? Girdle myself womanly.’ Poonah started to laugh but stopped. ‘Sorry, Kayla, I’m laughing because I can’t see it happening. But in case he’s serious and I were you, I would say, Baby, if this is what you want, you have my support.’

  ‘You’re joking me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be the one to discourage him. Let Wakhooli do it; it’s his culture.’ Poonah bit into the sandwich and sat back. Then sipped at tea. As an afterthought she added, ‘Talk to the family back home; what do they think? Masaaba is what, fifteen? Next imbalu season will be in two years, he’ll have changed his mind.’

  That was then.

  • • •

  For the first time, as they drove from the airport, Poonah was mortified that Entebbe Road had no streetlights. Even in Britain, she had become sensitive to things that embarrass ‘us’—the loud man holding up the bus, arguing with the driver in an African accent, the woman angry on the phone in her language as if she is alone on the train, the secondary school girls fighting their invisibility by being disruptive in libraries and on buses. Right now, Kayla’s silence was putting her on edge. Was she frightened of the dark? Was it the imbalu? But when did Uganda start to embarrass her? Is this how Kayla had felt when she had protected her at the airport?

  It must have been 2008. An African came through security. Kayla stood with Poonah because her group had come over to Terminal 4 to help with a high volume of passengers. On the X-ray, the African’s bag showed five round objects of organic material. The bag was pulled. It was food. He worked in Amsterdam but flew back every weekend. His wife cooked and froze five meals for him. The containers were packed in plastic bags. The ASO removed one container, opened the cover and brought it to his nose. Poonah clicked: few Africans tolerate the sniffing of their food. The ASO explained that he was going to open them all. The passenger asked him to wear gloves before he touched his food. The ASO did, but he went to town opening each container, smelling it, and Poonah was disgusted. The ASO must have seen her disgust because when he let the passenger go, he came to where she and Kayla stood and said: ‘I had to check; he said it was his food, but you never know; could’ve been human heads.’