8.

Isaac recovered first. Everyone else was still frozen. Paulo was saying, “It can’t be true, my grandfather will lie about anything in the name of God,” but no one heard. Isaac touched his hand and helped him up. “Look at me,” Paulo pleaded with Bweeza as Isaac led him away. “You said I look Tutsi.” Bweeza opened her mouth but no words came. He turned to Kanani, “Jjajja,” but Kanani did not look at him.

“Come with me,” Isaac said quietly. It was instinct probably borne out of coming into the world as a result of an ugly act that made Isaac respond to Paulo’s turmoil. He knew that Paulo needed distracting. “Come to my car.”

Then, as Isaac and Paulo walked down the hill, the clan came alive and everyone spoke at once. “It is the lad himself . . . he’s been here all weekend hovering,” Isaac heard someone say as they came to the kitawuluzi. They got into Isaac’s car and he drove away.

For a long time, they drove through marshy valleys, flat plains, and silent woods. Isaac could not bring himself to look at Paulo let alone say something. Driving on the road, it felt as if the curse had traveled the same road from old Kiyirika to find everyone wherever they were scattered.

“What is mawemuko?” Paulo asked.

“You don’t know?”

“Uh uh.”

“It’s sort of . . . incest.”

Paulo did not react. Then he gave a short laugh. “She actually told me!”

“Who told you?”

“She’s always insisted that I should look to Uncle Job as my father. I am sure one time she said, he is your father. But I thought it was just a way of speaking.”

“Your grandmother told you that?”

“My mother! Uncle Job is her twin.”

For a while, Isaac kept his eyes on the road. Then he stopped the car.

“You need the rituals—shrine-building, burial, stick-rubbing, ablution, quick.”

“The medium is dying, remember,” Paulo said nonchalantly.

Silence fell again. Then as if to even a score Isaac said, “My father raped my mother. He was thrown in prison and he lost his mind.”

“She even named me after him but my grandparents refused.”

“Who named you?”

“Because they’re so close.”

“Who?”

“The twins.”

“Which twins?”

“My parents.”

“Oh.”

“We’re back to modernity,” Paulo said excitedly as if he had not just said that his parents were twins. “There is a bar on the network.”

Isaac did not know what to do with the sudden turn. He looked at Paulo to work him out, then with equal excitement said, “Good!”

In Masaka Town, the network signal got stronger. Paulo stepped out of the car to make a call. Isaac watched him keying the phone then he put it over his ear. Paulo looked uncannily Tutsi: lanky, sharp pointy features, a bridged nose, very dark, even skin, and very dark gums. He got a response, smiled, and moved further away from the car. Paulo seemed to have lived a cosseted life. Isaac felt a pang of envy. Why was Paulo, a child of incest, loved and good-looking while he, a child of mere rape, was shunned and ugly? The call ended and Paulo walked back to the car. Isaac started the engine.

“That was Nyange, my girlfriend.”

“I thought you were calling your mother?”

“And say what? Hallo, Mother. Is it true your brother is my father?”

Isaac kept silent.