4.

The party was a week into the journey and their pace had slowed down considerably. In the absence of overhead vegetation or hills, they were exposed to the sun and to the heat. Although Kintu talked to his men, commenting on the weather and on the landscape, he kept counsel with his mind.

Now the men’s laughter forced itself upon him. They no longer talked to those immediately around them as before, but as a group. It was a strategy to disregard the sun, to numb the ache in their heels and to maintain cheer. Kintu never took part in the morale-sustaining banter, partly because the men only ever discussed women and partly to maintain his distance.

Kintu turned his mind to the men’s conversation. Gitta was the unfortunate subject. He had recently given Kiyirika Village the kind of gossip that sustained strenuous work because it did not die easily.

“At Gitta’s age, a bride like Zaya would only hasten him to his grave,” a voice said.

“But how was he to know that Zaya was a toddler? She was his height and had breasts on the wedding day.”

“How was he to know? One, when he found out that his bride preferred children’s company; two, when she continued to grow. Zaya’s now head and shoulders above him.”

“Zaya’s not a child. She’s one of those women who can’t bear the touch of a man.”

“In that case, Gitta is stuck with a man.”

“What do you mean ‘stuck with a man’? A woman’s a woman.”

“He should have made her pregnant first thing.”

“How could he? The girl’s a wrestler.”

“Her family was negligent. Zaya wasn’t sufficiently prepared for marriage.”

The men threw opinions over Kintu’s head like a bunch of women in a peeling barn. Kintu would have rather redirected the conversation but it had reinvigorated the pace. Gitta was a prominent elder. However, a very public error had felled him.

“I blame Gitta’s eldest wife. When I bring home a girl like Zaya, I expect my eldest wife to take her on, groom her and let me know when she’s ready,” Nnondo the headman said.

“Depends on the first wife you married.”

“Do you know what Zaya told my daughter?”

“What?”

“That Gitta is rotten, that she keeps a knife under her bed in case he gets rotten with her.”

“I still can’t make it out though. How did Gitta get his head stuck like that?”

“Apparently,” a narrator started with relish, “this particular night, Gitta was to get his dowry’s worth. When he got to her quarters, Zaya started her childish games of: Leave me alone, I don’t want. Gitta gave her a few whacks to let her know that he was serious. Zaya stopped fighting. He made his move but Zaya went wild. She grabbed him—you know how huge she is now—swung him like a fibre doll and ran. Gitta, thinking he was still the bull he once was, gave chase. Zaya ran into the shrubbery behind her quarters, Gitta in pursuit. In the darkness, he ran into an acacia shrub. Somehow, the stems locked around his neck. When he pulled his head out, the stems tightened. Gitta panicked and roared.”

“That wail, man. As if something was devouring him!”

“If you got to the scene after Gitta was dislodged, count yourself lucky. But there I was with a man old enough to be my father, his neck trapped between stems like a sheep because he was chasing young sex. I put laughter on hold and got working. But it was not easy. The women kept asking: Why he was chasing her at this time of the night? All Gitta said was, Hurry, help me. I looked long at Gitta, gray all over but still craving young cunt. I thought, surely there must be a point at which a man can say enough is enough and hang up his manly eggs?”

“My wife woke me up and said: Your friend nearly died. Which friend? I asked. The aged bull that grazes among calves, she said and I shut her up.”

“What happens to Zaya now?”

An awkward silence hovered.

Zaya was now part of Kintu’s household, but the facts were not clear. Unfortunately, the men could not speculate in his presence. The prolonged silence and the absence of Kintu’s bland smile alerted the men that they had gone too far. The conversation died.

Actually, when Nnakato learned that Zaya was fugitive in her garden, she had invited her into the home and asked Kintu to let her stay while her marriage was sorted out. Kintu dissuaded Gitta from returning Zaya to her parents, reasoning that she might be a slow developer needing the firm but gentle handling of a mother. On her part, Zaya swore to kill herself if she was returned to Gitta. Kintu left Zaya with Nnakato and Babirye to groom and asked Gitta to give her time. Then he told his teenage sons to treat Zaya as a sister, but with the respect for a married woman. His sons had laughed. Who wanted Gitta’s pugilistic bride, one who took strides like a hunter, whose feet grasped the earth like a man’s, whose voice, when she spoke, carried the whole house on top of her head and who, as if her mother never breastfed her properly, said that she had dreamed of becoming a warrior?

As soon as she was let loose in Kintu’s household, Zaya forgot that she was married and a woman. She joined Kintu’s sons in laying traps to catch animals and shooting birds out of trees. Boys kept reminding her that she was female and should not climb trees.

Kintu felt for Gitta. He knew the snare of being a man. Society heaped such expectations on manhood that in a bid to live up to them some men snapped.