10.

Monday, January 12, 2004

Miisi was sitting on the balcony when two men emerged from the depression of the tarred road below his compound and walked toward his house. His heart jumped and he found himself trembling. Perhaps it was because he had never seen the men before. His heart had jumped needlessly because the men seemed uncertain. They wore awkwardly fitting coats with faded trousers. They were peasants dressed to mask that fact. Unfortunately, the effort seemed only to enhance their discomfort. The men came to the steps and disappeared under the balcony. After a short pause, he heard them call. He waited as they were received downstairs, listening out for the expected footsteps on the stairs coming for him. Finally, his sister came.

“There’re men here asking for you. I’ve not told them that you are here, in case you don’t want to see them.”

Miisi went down the stairs with her. When he had greeted the men, they inquired whether he was Misirayimu Kintu.

“I am.”

The men introduced themselves. The oldest, wearing an old-fashioned but new-looking coat, was Magga. Miisi guessed the coat was part of his wedding suit but Magga had not found an excuse to wear the coat since. The other man, whose coat was creased because it had been washed rather than dry-cleaned, was Kato. Presently, Miisi’s wife brought refreshments but the men declined.

“We must do what we came to do first,” Magga said.

The men started by each reciting his parentage back to his sixth paternal grandfather who, in both cases, was called Kidda. Miisi thought it was strange: recitation of one’s genealogy was done at traditional engagement rites, to eliminate common ancestry between the couple. He had never seen it happen between people who were meeting for the first time. He hoped that the men did not expect him to do the same for he did not even know his immediate grandfather’s name. He did not need to worry. Magga, when he had done his own genealogy, looked straight at Miisi, reminded Miisi of his own name, his father’s and grandfather’s. Magga even knew where Miisi’s father and grandfather had lived and where they were buried. Then he recited four more generations of Miisi’s grandfathers. Magga’s voice shook with emotion as he chronicled the generations. He sat on the floor with his legs folded underneath him as if he sat before the gods. Miisi listened to the names of his ancestors, where they had lived, where they were laid, and tried to picture them. Miisi’s sixth grandfather was also Kidda—the common ancestor between the three of them. From then on, their histories merged as Magga talked about Kidda’s father, Baale, the youngest son of Nnakato of old. At the mention of Nnakato, Magga’s voice fell indicating that he was taking a break. Kato broke in to explain, “This Nnakato was Kintu’s kabeja. Legend has it that for Kintu, the sun rose and set upon Nnakato. She only gave birth to twins, you see, until Baale came along. In turn, Baale had one child—this Kidda that we three share. Baale had Kidda by a servant called Zaya.”

“Zaya was not a servant,” Magga corrected as if they could not have a servant in their genealogy.

“Then why was she living in Kintu’s home?” Kato challenged.

An awkward moment of silence ensued. Magga did not rise to the challenge. Instead he turned to Miisi and explained, “This Zaya, how she got pregnant with Baale’s son when Baale was just about to get married, is unexplained—”

“Baale was a boy, he was playing around like boys do,” Kato laughed.

Magga chose to ignore Kato and carried on, “But what we know is that Zaya ran away with the unborn child and settled somewhere in Kyaggwe. When the child was born, he was named Kidda after his grandfather, our forefather Kintu Kidda who was a Ppookino. But I will come back to that.”

“Indeed, Kintu, Kidda, and Baale are recurrent names in our clan.”

Magga’s recitation rose again and he weaved through Baale’s life. Baale was indulged by his parents. Apparently, because he was the only child without a twin, he asked for his own twin. His parents adopted a Tutsi, Kalema, as his twin and the two boys grew up together. “Then tragedy fell on the family. Baale dropped dry-dead on his wedding day and Nnakato, unable to take it, committed suicide. That was when it was discovered that Ppookino Kintu had killed the Tutsi, Baale’s adoptive twin, and a curse had been cast on him and on his house. Soon, Kintu too lost his mind and disappeared. The rest of the family scattered throughout Buganda and beyond.”

Magga once again took a breath while Kato interjected.

“At the time, Buddu was a large province. Our grandfather Kintu Kidda had devoured lands beyond the Kagera River bordering with the Bakaya people in Tanzania. We suspect the family grounds were somewhere close to the border with Tanzania.”

Magga pulled out a sheet of paper on which the family tree had been drawn. Miisi was awestricken as he looked at different branches of the family.

“You are at the heart of the family tree,” Magga said to Miisi. “We three are descendants of Kintu, of Baale, then of Kidda but you are the only surviving son of the heir lineage as it comes down the bloodline.”

“You see Kintu Kidda had chosen Baale as his heir. In essence then, Baale’s unborn son Kidda was to be the heir. When you follow that heir’s blood it leads to you.”

The men waited for Miisi to be awed. When he said nothing, Kato said softly, “We know that the curse has been harsh on you. Ours is a dreadful inheritance—”

“But then we’re blessed with twins,” Magga interrupted.

“Yes, there is that,” Kato, a twin himself, smiled. “But we would like to say that you should not be hard on your father, he was only trying—”

Miisi laughed cynically.

“He was ill-advised by a quack who had no idea what he was dealing with.”

“Indeed, any true medium would know that one man’s action toward this curse is a dog barking at an elephant.”

“So it is true?” Miisi asked.

Magga and Kato looked at each other.

“What do you mean?”

“That I had an older brother called Baale.”

“You were young.”

“My mother talks about him in my dreams.”

Kato glanced at Magga as if seeking permission to volunteer more information.

“Yes, your oldest brother was Baale and . . . he died.”

“Father sacrificed him.”

“He did not. It was the quack. No father would—”

“Abraham almost did.”

“Well,” Magga smiled uncomfortably, “I don’t know about Abraham but your father was told that just one son, the eldest, would break the curse.”

“Was Baale the smell in the house?”

“What smell?”

“There was a smell in the house.”

“How would you know?”

“I dream.”

The men looked at each other, baffled. Then Magga said, “The quack prescribed to keep the embalmed body in the roof to ward off the curse.”

“If I believed in this curse you talk about, I would take you outside to my back garden and show you the beds laid out for ten out of my twelve children.” Miisi glared at the men as if they had killed his children.

“We know.”

“But the reality is,” Miisi interrupted Kato firmly, “that five of my children were killed during the war and five have died of this our new thing. How can I blame a curse?”

Magga sighed as if he had expected this resistance.

“Regardless of what you believe, Miisi, the sooner we start the restoration the better.”

“Restoration? What restoration?” Miisi asked.

“The family seat in Buddu.”

“Who is buried in o Lwera?” Miisi asked.

The men looked at each other. Then Magga asked, “Has someone been to talk to you?”

Miisi wanted to laugh at their bewildered faces.

“I told you, I dream.”

Magga sat up. Then he looked at Kato. Before the men recovered, Miisi, now drunk on their shock, said, “Tell me about the bees then.”

“What bees?”

“You know nothing about the bees?” Miisi derided.

“Bees are a myth,” said Magga. “Apparently, long, long ago a woman gave birth to a bee in the family . . . that sort of thing,” Magga laughed. “What I know is that either there was a brother named Kayuki or there was a colony of bees close to the house.”

“A swarm of bees arrived here a week ago and camped in a room upstairs,” Miisi said.

Magga shivered.

“Then what happened?” Kato asked.

“Nothing. They died. But then I dreamt again.”

“Dreamt?”

“A man covered in bees took me to an old place, a hill. He showed me where a Nnakato and a Baale are buried. Then he took me to a moor where a lad Kalemanzira and my father are buried.”

There was silence. The men stared at him.

“Before I forget,” Miisi could not help laughing at their grave faces, “He told me to take my brothers and build him a dwelling: he gave me the specific measurements and showed me the tree to use and the one where Nnakato hanged herself.”

There was silence for a long time. Then Kato stood up rather quickly.

“We have to hurry back and report this to the clan elders. It seems like the ancients came to you before we did.” Magga was clearly rattled.

“What did you do with the bees? Dead bees are an omen—death,” Kato said.

“My sister, who believes in that sort of thing, buried them. And as you can see, no one has died.”

“Wait a minute,” Magga whispered to Kintu. “You have no sister.”

Miisi glared first at Magga then at Kato for a while. Then he blurted, “I don’t like the news you have brought.”

“We are sorry,” Kato threw a warning glance at Magga as if to say watch what you say. “None of your family survived the fire. The priests wanted you to heal and gave you a playmate.”

“Maybe we should wait until you meet the rest of the elders: they’ll explain things better.” Kato could not wait to leave.

“Don’t worry about it. No one will tell me she is not my sister,” he smiled. Seeing how shaken the men were, he added, “For a moment there, I got caught up in this whole spiritual situation and played the spiritualist at you. It is true I dream but my dreams are nothing but the rumblings of a disturbed mind. Please don’t read anything into them.”

“We hear you, Miisi, but the elders will decide what is significant and what is not.”

The men left without drinking their juice. Miisi wondered what had come over him to say what he did. He hoped the elders had more common sense than Magga and Kato.