2.

KATANGA, KAMPALA, 1967

Isaac sat naked on the floor. His buttocks were numb from sitting too long on a cold concrete surface every day. His chin dug deep into his chest as he leaned forward to see past his distended belly. He pulled back the foreskin on his little penis and a pink worm jutted forth. He let it go. It slunk back into its sheath and the wrinkled foreskin pouted. He thrust it forth again. Fascinating: the worm had a mouth. He let go and the foreskin swallowed it again. But he had to see his worm pop out just this once. He pulled back the foreskin, it popped out, gleaming. Isaac was engrossed in this now-it’s-here, now-it’s-not game when a rush of air swept across his face and a slap disengaged his hands. He started as if chilled water had been thrown at him. It was not the pain of the slap, not even the fact that he had been caught at it that made him jump, it was because he had not heard her coming. Isaac lifted his eyes slowly but could only see as high as her knees. He could not risk looking further, the movement could provoke her. His head turned owl-like and went down. A ray of sunshine streaking through the window illuminated his thin wavy brown hair.

“Stop playing with that maggot.”

Isaac’s eyes darted back to his penis but it had shrunk beneath his belly. He sighed. This was the end of the peace he had enjoyed that morning. He waited for the next assault. He did not know in what form it would come.

“If I catch you toying with it again, I’ll cut it off.”

Isaac’s little fingers did a slow dance with each other like the legs of a dying cockroach. Then he remembered and closed his eyes. His mind chanted, “Leave the room, leave, leave . . .” His concentration was so intense that he rocked back and forth.

It worked. The air relaxed and he heard the inner door close. Isaac opened his eyes and smiled. He looked down for something to occupy him. Two thin legs came into view. They wandered from beneath his belly and stretched before him. At the end of the legs were two feet, unused, baby-like. Isaac looked at the legs as if seeing them for the first time. He leaned forward and touched his knees. The scabs, thick from crawling, deadened his touch. He felt his knees distantly. He gave up touching himself.

The lounge was devoid of furniture. In one corner, pans, yellow enamel plates, cups, and a matching teapot sat on a wooden tray placed on top of a metallic pail. In the corner adjacent to him, mats in dazzling colors leaned against the wall. On his right, two meters away, was the door to the other room, the bedroom. In the bedroom was a single bed, his grandmother’s. At night, the bed brought forth all sorts of bedding and the floor, both in the lounge and in the bedroom, was besieged by sleeping bodies. In the morning, the bodies woke up early, gathered their bedding, tied it into bundles and the bed swallowed them again.

Each morning, someone pulled Isaac off his heap of rags before he woke up. He was tossed in this place where he watched, through the window, hordes of fruit bats swarming as if someone had thrown them out of bed, too. The rags, always wet, were tossed out to dry making them thicker, crustier, and warmer at night. Isaac had grown so used to the smell that when he was thrown back onto the heap, a sharp wave of old urine hit him and mellowed into a delicious intimate smell making him yawn. He would grope and slither, half asleep, into heavier and warmer rags. A tattered shirt, a dress, whatever, Isaac snaked his arms or legs through. By the time he was through with thrusting and tossing, he was asleep, the smell too cozy, the rags too familiar, the luxury too overpowering to keep his eyes open.

“Look, he’s peed again!”

Isaac started. Where did she come from? He looked down in panic. A rivulet snaked from beneath his belly between his stretched-out legs toward his feet. He turned and looked behind him; there was only the wall. It was his water. He sighed as if to say: Guilty, do as you please, and clenched his head in anticipation. The smack did not come. Instead, his grandmother’s voice called from outside, “Take him out and squat him on the latrine. He might shit as well.”

The girl panicked and wrenched Isaac up.

“Oh no, he has!”

She let Isaac’s body fall back into its shit. The pain cut through his numb buttocks. A sharp breath escaped his mouth but he sunk his chin into his chest and strangled the cry. He had not felt his body defecate.

“You’re going to sit in that shit for the rest of the day.”

“Tendo, Tendo, TENDO!”

“Yes, Mother?”

“Clean him right away.”

“Can’t we throw him into the latrine with his dung?”

Isaac flinched: falling through the latrine-hole was his nightmare. He had no doubt that Tendo would do it when his grandmother was not watching. He imagined himself spending the rest of his life in the ponging darkness with people dropping dung and susu on top of his head and shivered.

“I am not laughing, Tendo.”

Tendo’s legs, their hairs bristling, went out of view. Isaac heard her rummaging in the inner room. Then she was coming back. Isaac looked through the corners of his eye and saw her feet, in thong sandals, come into view. They stopped in front of him. Above his head, paper ripped. Then an exercise book fell on the floor. It opened at the middle and Isaac saw squared pages with figures and scribbling. Then he heard her crumple and wring paper to soften it. He was jerked off the floor, stood on his feet, and leaned against her legs. He bit his lower lip as the crack between his buttocks was savaged. Despite Tendo’s attempts to soften the paper it was a scourer: his crack was on fire. She thumped him back on the floor in a different place and scooped up the shit.

“Phmnnn, this boy’s rotting.”

Tendo ran out of the house as if she were carrying a spreading fire. Isaac heard her spit heavily on her way to the latrine. Then she came back with a rag, soap, and water. She scrubbed his behind with the wet rag and then mopped the floor. She let him down with a final thud and walked out, spitting some more. When she returned, Tendo stood away from him.

“You dare shit again,” she hissed, “And I’ll stitch your anus.”

Isaac sucked in his anus.

“Did you squat him on the latrine this morning?” his grandmother’s voice came.

“I did and he had a go. He eats a lot.”

“Was it loose?”

“Mother, he’s always running loose.”

“Remind me to buy Mebendazole. It could be worms.”

“I’d stick a pin into that balloon belly of yours,” Tendo whispered to Isaac, “But shit and worms would explode everywhere—phroooooo!”

Isaac saw fragments of his stomach, like a balloon’s, scattered all over the floor.

Tendo walked back outside.

“I don’t understand it,” his grandmother’s voice was now faint. “Six years old but he stays mute and unable to walk?”

“He’s not unable, Mother. He doesn’t want to. The doctor said there’s nothing wrong with him,” Tendo said.

“Then we shall be patient.”

Isaac crawled back to where he had fouled earlier, sat in the exact place, and settled down to exploring his body again. He sunk his index finger into his navel and felt crusts of tight dirt lodged in secret creases. The finger nudged and teased until a sliver of dirt came loose into his nail. He pulled the finger out. He prized the dirt from under his nail and rolled it between the balls of his thumb and forefinger. He lifted the finger to his nose and sniffed. The smell was deep, ugly, and intimate. Isaac rolled his eyes in shocked pleasure. He exhaled the smell and snapped the dirt into the air. He sunk his finger once more into the dent, seeking more folds, more old tight dirt.

Thus Isaac passed his time exploring rotten parts of his body, carrying their decay on his finger to his nose. There was so much ugliness on his body. From behind his ears to between his toes he explored every crack, crevice, and fold until the smells stopped shocking him. Other times, he amused himself with insects that trespassed on his floor. Insects, especially ants, made him feel powerful. He crawled after them, sometimes getting on his feet without realizing it, to catch them. Usually, he plucked the hind limbs and let them go. He marveled that when dismembered, ants never opened their mouths to cry out. Instead, they dragged their bodies, now moving in circles. Sometimes, he squashed the abdomen and watched as the insects did a chest dance. Other times, he flooded them with his urine and watched them wading, gasping until they drowned. If he didn’t have urine, he put the ant in his mouth, closed it and flooded it with saliva. Then he listened as it wriggled on his tongue tickling it in its death throes. Sometimes, an ant squirted something disgusting on his tongue in revenge. As soon as it stopped kicking, he spat it out. Then he waited for dusk when multitudes of fruit bats filled the sky, happy to be free in the air, going to a feast.