4.

When Faisi brought supper, Kanani’s other regret in life raised its head. Forty-nine years of marriage but he had not got used to Faisi’s cooking. The rice on his plate was boiled, soggy, and white as she never spiced it. Whatever Faisi cooked she drowned: vegetables, Irish potatoes, even matooke. She never steamed food traditionally in banana leaves. When they first married Kanani would joke, “The pieces of meat are swimming,” or “I need a fishing rod to catch these beans,” but it fell on deaf ears.

As time passed, Kanani felt coerced because he would not dare cook for himself. The Awakened had shaken off most of Ugandan culture yet aspects of traditional manhood persisted. Cooking was unmanly. In the 50s, when he first joined the church administration, he envied European men who wandered in and out of their kitchens without restriction. When missionaries invited him and Faisi to barbecues and dinners, Kanani saw white men help their wives cook. Some openly confessed that their wives were hopeless cooks and that when they wanted a decent meal they made it themselves. Yet, for him to let slip that Faisi was unimaginative in the kitchen was to undermine her as a woman. Instead he would say, “In our culture the kitchen, especially the cooking stones, are taboo to the man of the house.”

“Really?”

“As boys if you wander too often into the kitchen doubt is cast over you.”

“What would you do then if Faith—Europeans said Faisi’s name in English—was as hopeless as my Jennie?”

“It would be my cross to bear.”

“Rather harsh, wouldn’t you say?”

Kanani missed his mother’s cooking. He was brought up on European soups and gravies. His mother was a housekeeper for a missionary, Mr. Lane, who lived on the western slopes of Namirembe Hill. Mr. Lane was the Headmaster of the School for the Handicapped. The school, run on British charity, had long closed down. Kanani sighed as his childhood returned and his appetite fled.

At the time, he could only describe Mr. Lane’s house as a whole village. “Rooms and rooms, all huge, each with its own toilet and bathroom, cupboards and wardrobes and carpets, I swear.” The floor in Mr. Lane’s vast sitting room was not carpeted as the rest of the house; it was made of tiny wooden panels, parquet. Kanani always helped his mother to varnish it because it was hard work. He especially remembered the square dining table, which was partitioned into four equal triangles. Each triangle had its own chair. If the family wanted to dine together then it became one table: the pieces locked together perfectly. But if you wanted to dine on your own, then you took a triangle and a chair wherever you wanted to sit.

When Mr. Lane’s sachets of sauces expired, they had to be thrown away but Kanani’s mother brought them home and they tasted fine. She explored new ways of cooking Ugandan food with British sauces. Hence, before marrying Faisi, Kanani had been used to eating thick gravies and soups, crunchy vegetables and traditionally steamed foods.

Every time Mr. Lane returned from his holiday in England he brought toys and sweets for Eileen’s children—Mr. Lane called Kanani’s mother Eileen. Kanani especially loved the self-assembling red plastic buses. Once every term, Mr. Lane opened the vast stores where he kept bales and bales of children’s clothes that arrived every month from England. He would ask Kanani’s mother to pick as much clothing as her family needed. Even when Kanani and Faisi had the twins, his mother still brought clothes from the school.

Unlike other missionaries, Mr. Lane stayed long after independence. When Amin expelled all non-Africans from Uganda, Mr. Lane stayed even though he was quite old. Children with disabilities were brought from all over Uganda to this luxurious boarding school, given wheelchairs and crutches if they needed them. Their parents only came to visit and to take them home during holidays. As far as Kanani could see, the school was a paradise for disabled children. Mr. Lane left when his cancer worsened. That day, he asked Kanani’s family to come and take whatever they wished from his house before he locked up. Kanani had picked the partitioned table first, then a fridge and a cooker. Afterwards, Mr. Lane had taken the keys to the new headmaster.

But no one took Hio, Mr. Lane’s donkey, or Sheba, his tail-less dog, with an unkempt striped tiger coat. Mr. Lane cried the day he left and so did Kanani’s mother. Luckily, she was kept on by the school as a cleaner. She looked after Sheba, who had been evicted from Mr. Lane’s house by the Ugandan headmaster. Sheba died a year later of sadness and of the kawawa flies, which had perforated his ears. Hio, on the other hand, did not notice Mr. Lane’s departure. He continued to roam the vast grounds and fields of the school.

A discreet knock on the door came and Kanani looked up. Paulo stood at the door. Shrouded by the night, Kanani could only make out a silhouette of Paulo’s face. But then he leaned forward and placed two heavy carrier bags on the floor, coming momentarily into view before withdrawing back into the shadow. As usual, Paulo was not coming in, but had come to check on his grandparents before he went to his quarters.

“How did the day treat you, Paulo?” Kanani had refused to call his grandson Kalema.

“Nothing new, Grandfather. Maybe yours was interesting.” Paulo, now holding the door, looked away from Kanani, out into the night.

“Ours was exciting. We went sowing.”

“I hope it went well,” Paulo smiled.

Kanani pushed his food away and stood up. He came toward the carrier bags Paulo had placed on the floor.

“Oh, the success of sowing is not ours but His,” Kanani answered wearily. “We are only His humble vessels. Is this food?” Kanani checked the groceries. Then he sighed as he saw rice and beef. “Why do you keep buying food you won’t share with us?” He picked up the plastic bags and answered his own question, “You’ve been out with friends and have already eaten.” He sighed like an old man who did not understand. “Now get out of the dark and get to bed.”

“Sleep well,” Paulo said as he closed the door. “Greet Grandmother for me.”

Kalema closed the door and walked to his quarters in the new wing of the house, which had been added for him by the twins.