10.

March 2004

Kizza started falling sick slowly. It was just a runny nose at first. Nonetheless, Isaac withdrew him from school. Then a cough started but Kizza woke up strong and ate and played. Then the cough grew. At night, Isaac heard it boom-booming like a drum. When it gripped, Kizza coughed relentlessly until Isaac brought him to his own bed. He noticed that Kizza sweated in his sleep. It was now a month since they had taken the HIV test but Isaac had not collected the results.

Isaac took Kizza to Dr. Tembo who said it was just a bad cough and gave him an antibiotic jab. After a week, the cough stopped. But then Isaac noticed that Kizza’s hair had lost some of its luster. It was a subtle change, the black had a brown tint and the curls were not as tight. It was a clear sign that Kizza was unwell. Isaac asked his mother, “Have you noticed the change in Kizza?”

“No, what sort of change?”

“He doesn’t look right, that hair.”

His mother scrutinized the hair, turning Kizza’s head this way and that way but she shook her head. “I don’t see anything. Children are children: today they’re this, tomorrow they’re that. Kizza has had a bad cough, that is all.”

“Maybe I took him back to school too soon,” Isaac said.

Nnamata weighed her words carefully. She knew Isaac’s paranoia was looking for the new death’s symptoms. On the other hand, she was lucky he had spoken to her at all. Finally she said, “Why don’t you take him back to Dr. Tembo for a checkup?”

After a physical examination and a few blood tests, the doctor found nothing wrong with Kizza. But when, two days later, the school rang to say that they suspected Kizza had mumps, Isaac took him back to Tembo. The doctor confessed that he was not sure what was wrong with the boy, but ruled out mumps. He recommended that Kizza be admitted in hospital for overnight observation. The following morning when he came on the ward, Dr. Tembo asked Isaac for Kizza’s HIV status.

“His mother died of it, so we can safely presume.”

“I can’t safely presume,” Tembo smiled. “I’ll do some tests. I suspect meningitis. If it is, we need to start treatment immediately but I need his HIV serostatus.”

For Isaac, Tembo might as well have confirmed that Kizza had it. It was obvious, even to the most optimistic, that meningitis was an HIV symptom. Looking back at the last month, Kizza had shown many typical symptoms.

Isaac was calm as he left the hospital. His wish had been granted. He was confident that after the cold and cough, meningitis would find Kizza a dry twig to snap. By the time he arrived home, Isaac was planning Kizza’s funeral.

It was with some dismay then, that Isaac watched Kizza pull through. He pretended to be relieved. Privately, he reassured himself that death can be deceptive: Kizza could seem to be recovering only to be snuffed out suddenly. But then one day, after a week, Isaac came to the hospital to find all the tubes through Kizza’s nose removed. Tembo and his mother beamed at him. A week later, Kizza was discharged.

The day Isaac took Kizza back to school he sat in his office dejected. He ignored the two letters on his desk. Instead, he contemplated future hospital runs, Kizza’s schooling disrupted and the boy’s pain and suffering. What if he died first and left Kizza, sick and at the mercy of the world? He had seen what happened to Nnayiga and he was not willing to go through the same. Who would look after him the way he looked after Nnayiga? Isaac decided that he was not going to be tossed about by nature anymore. He would decide when and how he and his son would vacate the world.

Then, shaking himself free of the melancholy, he turned his attention to the letters on his desk. One was from the Joint Research Centre: he put it aside without opening it. The other, in a brown envelope, was addressed him in Luganda. He opened it. It summoned him, as the only son of Puti Kintu, to represent his father at an elders’ council for a family reunion. Dates and venues for the meetings were provided. The reunion was scheduled for the Easter weekend in April. After work, Isaac carried both letters to the car and dropped them in the glove compartment.