10.

Suubi felt beleaguered now that the toothaches had started. The aches were mild, only the crowns hurt—as if heavy metal objects were scratching each other—but the discomfort was mounting. Every time she connected Ssanyu Babirye’s return to dating Opolot the pain came, creeping to her front teeth. She had considered giving up Opolot for peace of mind but she knew that there would be no such thing. Theirs was a calm relationship—without the complication of the intense emotions she had seen other couples display. It was only when she considered terminating it that its intensity became aggressive. Suubi was now convinced that she was possessed by a jealous spirit that did not want to see her happy with a man.

Dating Opolot had not only conjured Ssanyu Babirye out of hell, it had also pressured Suubi into telling the story of her life. She had to have events and anecdotes at her fingertips to dispense in conversation with him and his friends. This is what brought on the pain in the teeth. It had always been like that with friends. They always wanted bits of her past: answers to tiny questions, musings, or wonderings. Suubi did not mind people talking about their lives or childhoods as long as they did not expect her to join in.

“You don’t talk much about yourself, Suubi.”

“I have lived an ordinary life,” she would say. Inside, she wanted to scream, “I am here. Let’s start here, now.”

Most people, she presumed, grew up dispensing bits of their lives over and over. Eventually their stories flowed easily. However, she had never made friends as a child and so she had not had the chance to rehearse her stories.

Suubi had known Opolot for more than two years but previously, when he probed, she distanced herself. However, nine months ago it became ridiculous to say: This won’t work, when he countered with: How can it work when you’ve not given it a chance? Perhaps this was why their relationship was quiet. They had been in a repressed love for two years, both knowing that the other felt it as keenly as they did. Neither had tried to date other people. When Suubi finally plunged herself into it, because she could not hold out much longer, it felt like they had been together all that time.

Suubi wished she could say to Opolot that her memory was a scratched disc, that it jumped and skipped. Sometimes it didn’t play at all. Nevertheless, when questions about her past presented themselves she answered them as faithfully as she could. Little by little, a story of her life had taken form.

“My full name is actually Suubi N. Kiyaga.

“N is for Nnakintu but I don’t use it really. Nnakintu is the feminine version of Kintu. The name ‘Kintu’ is clanless, any clan can use it. Things like clans don’t matter to me really. Luckily, you’re Atesot: we can’t be related. Yes, clans are about identity, but essentially they’re a measure against inbreeding. Yes, Suubi means ‘hope’ but my parents never told me what they were hoping for. I have no attachment to names really.

“Katama is the eldest. When we were young and got in trouble together, he always got blamed, ‘And you too, Katama, a big boy?’ He hates his name; it suggests that he is tiny. Yes, he’s quiet but I would not say haughty. It was easy for me being a middle child. Maybe I was a little neglected sometimes, like all middle children, but nothing to be traumatized about.

“Kula is the second-born; her name is actually Kulabako which means ‘beautiful to look at.’ Kula is the hot-headed one of all of us. She makes up her mind fastest and loudest. She says it exactly as she sees it and can be offensive. But she’ll give you her last shilling and won’t remind you if you go back for more. She is generous in that way—just don’t start a fight with her.

“Then there is me, the second last-born. At home they call me Kaama. I guess it’s all about the ‘K’ names: rather embarrassing really. Kaama is from a proverb. It says that a destitute child is like Kaama, a wild yam. Unlike other yams that are tended and nurtured in a garden because their stems are delicate, Kaama—just as delicate—must fight its way in the cruel jungle. But then I could be Kaama—a whisper. The difference is in intonation.

“Katiiti is the last-born. She’s the pretty one: her name means ‘love-bead.’ I desperately wanted that name when we were young! Katiiti is oblivious: nothing bothers her; nothing matters; she floats through life. She can be mean though. Daddy said we used to fight, me and her, when we were young. I guess because she comes after me.

“I look different from my siblings? I guess it is because they look like Mum . . .”

“Apparently, Dad was not my biological father after all. I only found out last year, after his death. You know the Ganda have a saying: Your father is never truly yours until your mother is dead. It came painfully true for me. When Dad died, we took pride in the fact that he didn’t saddle us with half-siblings. And then I find out that he’s not my real dad? It’s still hard for me.

“I suspect Mum and Dad broke up at one point and in the gap Mum got pregnant with me but they made up regardless. I don’t know. Maybe Mum didn’t know that Daddy knew.

“No, Dad was good to me. I don’t have a bad word to say about him. People say I was his favorite. I mean, that could be the reason why Katiiti and I don’t get on. I brought home the best school reports. Katiiti struggled in school. I was the one who was never sent to boarding school because I could pass in any school. They envied me for staying close to our parents. At sixteen I was given my own room in the annex because I was so responsible while they slept close to Mum and Dad.

“No, I never suspected anything at all. On school forms, I filled in his name as my father. You’ve seen my graduation pictures: he stood beside me with Mum. He threw a great graduation party for me. Actually, people say I looked more like him than anyone else in the family. I still use their family name though.

“Of course anyone would want to know their biological father but it is no big deal for me . . .

“When Mum was diagnosed with cancer, my sisters would not leave her side. But I was always with Dad because he also needed someone. He was the one who was going to stay behind on his own. Someone had to be there for him too. When she died, I checked on him every day. Even when I discovered, two months after Mum’s death, that he was seeing someone else, it didn’t matter. The others were incensed that he had been seeing the woman behind Mummy’s back while she was ill. It could have been true, but you know, the relationship between Mum and Dad had nothing to do with me. That, I think, led to a rift between us.

“Dad had a stroke two years after Mummy’s death. When he died, we mourned together as a family. At his burial, the number of his children was not mentioned, I thought, hmm, that’s strange: we are only four.

“Now that you mention it, the number of children was not mentioned at Mum’s burial either. Then the clan meetings for Daddy’s last funeral rites started.

“Anyway, one day, Kula rang to ask me to drop her home for the clan meetings to arrange for Dad’s last funeral rites. I thought, drop her: why not go with her? Why wasn’t I told about the meetings? When we arrived, the uncles and aunts, Dad’s siblings, were not only surprised to see me, but frowned at Kula for bringing me along. They would not look at me throughout the meeting. You could see they resented my presence.

“We set a tentative budget for the rites. Some clan elders wanted us children to contribute equal amounts of money but I suggested that we should contribute according to our means. However, while everyone else’s contribution was met with approval, mine was met with a stony silence, yet it was quite substantial compared to everyone else’s. You see, Kula, a teacher, is a single mother, and Katiiti didn’t have a man at the time, which meant she was broke. Katama doesn’t part with money easily, even though he is the eldest, the heir, and the only son.

“I found out during the rites. The family was invited to the reading of the will. But the elders insisted that only the children from Kiyaga’s ‘leg,’ as they put it, should attend. I didn’t realize what was going on until Kula whispered: That coward’s talking about you, Suubi. As if you don’t know that you’re not Daddy’s child.

“Can you imagine? I turned to stone. Why didn’t Mum tell me? How come everyone else knew? From then on, a gap opened between my siblings and me. They’ve avoided me since.

“Yes, they can be haughty as you say, but they’re fine when you get used to them.

“Finding my father? It’s kind of you to offer to look for him but you don’t have to.

“I would like to know him but I won’t have sleepless nights over it. Why hasn’t he tried to find me?”