In January 1981, Nsuuta was admitted to Mulago Hospital with yellow fever. Tom asked Kirabo, who had just finished her O-level exams, to give Nsuuta hospital care. The country had not started to recover from Idi Amin’s regime or the war that had ousted him. Hospitals were so understaffed, so overwhelmed, you had to bribe staff to be given a proper examination. At first, Kirabo refused: she would not undermine Grandmother so publicly. But asking Nnambi was out of the question, and Aunt Abi had a job. Besides, she was too loyal to Grandmother. Kirabo eventually agreed, but only after Tom promised to explain to Grandmother that he had told Kirabo to look after Nsuuta.
How do you care for a woman who had warned you against hurting your fellow women while she was sneaking around with your grandmother’s husband at the same time? What would she say to Nsuuta about the original state? During her final year of O levels, the study of Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine had resurrected Nsuuta’s idea of women having originally been seen as aquatic. For some time as she read the novel, Kirabo had been excited that maybe Nsuuta was on to something universal. But during class discussion, when she suggested that maybe the human subconscious located women in the sea and men on land, both the teacher and other students had looked at her like she was crazy. They did not see persecution in the presentation of Ihuoma as a sea goddess and femme fatale. When the teacher said she was reading too much into nothing she gave up. Gradually, Kirabo’s mind had converted Nsuuta into a radical mwenkanonkano activist. Kirabo was in awe of Nsuuta’s bold philosophy and was grateful to her for trying to allay her fears about flying and finding her mother. But the fact remained; Nsuuta had been sneaking around with Grandfather.
When Kirabo arrived at the hospital, Nsuuta was so ill and frail that Kirabo’s unease fled. She was yellow. Because she could not keep anything down, she was put on a drip. When she grew stronger and the drip was removed, Nsuuta did not say much. She seemed locked inside herself. Kirabo tried to pry her out by telling her about the nuns at St Theresa’s and their attempt to create a paradise for girls, how she had thought St Theresa’s was a collection of girls with the original state. But Nsuuta only batted her eyelids in return. Most of the time Kirabo sat and watched her, wondering if the fiery Nsuuta would ever come back.
Even when the women from Nattetta started to arrive with food and gossip, Nsuuta remained silent. Widow Diba came alone. Despite her swollen legs she said, ‘Take a rest, Kirabo. I will take care of Nsuuta today.’ When she finished the chores she sat down, stretched her legs and sighed the pain of old women. When Kirabo joined her, she laughed. ‘Your grandmother will pull down the heavens when she finds out you are looking after Nsuuta. Me, I did not tell her I was coming.’
Before Kirabo could respond, nurses and a doctor arrived to examine Nsuuta. Kirabo and Widow Diba withdrew to the foyer. Diba sat on the floor and leaned against the wall. Kirabo sighed, ‘But Widow Diba, what is it between Grandmother and Nsuuta?’
‘Child, those two are beyond us all.’
‘I know Grandfather is grazing in Nsuuta’s paddock.’
‘You do?’
‘And I am thinking, Nsuuta knows better than to make a fellow woman miserable. But then I hear that Grandmother pinched Grandfather from Nsuuta in the first place, and I’m lost. The only person left to blame is Grandfather.’
‘But what you do not know is that, as children, Alikisa and Nsuuta were like this’ – she crossed her fore and middle fingers – ‘so close, they would split a mite to share it. But I always said a man would be the death of that friendship.’
Kirabo looked away.
‘Miiro loved Nsuuta first, and he loved her hard. You know, those wealthy people married wealthy people in our day. So, for Miiro, it was just right for Luutu’s son, educated and lugogofu-handsome, to marry the Muluka’s beautiful and educated daughter. Luutu had a car, but years earlier Nsuuta’s grandfather was the first to ride a pikipiki.’
‘You mean there were motorcycles in those days?’
‘Of course. They were wooden.’
‘Get out, Widow Diba. How can a pikipiki be wooden?’
‘I saw it with my own eyes. Apart from the tyres, the pouch for fuel, wires and tubes, maybe the seat had a cushion, but everything else was smooth wood – beautiful. In fact, the day Nsuuta’s grandfather died, his wives – there were only seven left then – pounced on that pikipiki with axes, and by the time his sons came to rescue it, most of it was in the hearth cooking food for his funeral. Apparently, the pikipiki noise drove the wives mad.’
‘That is madness.’
‘Forget the wives’ madness; Miiro and Nsuuta brought new ways to courting. In our days, parents arranged marriages. Not for Miiro and Nsuuta. They made their decision. Miiro would collect Nsuuta from her home and they would walk down that road discussing their love while the world watched. We were waiting for their parents to set the wedding processes in motion when what did we hear?’
‘What?’
‘Nsuuta was off to Gayaza High for further studies. I said, “Which further studies? What model of madness is this?” It was a perfect marriage proposal. But Nsuuta wanted to do nursing. Some said she had raised herself so high she wanted to complete all the studying in Uganda and go to Bungeleza to become a doctor like men. In the 1930s a girl aiming to be a doctor was a girl intending to climb into the world of men and shit on their heads. In any case, by the time you finished all that studying you were past marrying age: who would want you? So Miiro pleads, “Nsuuta, my one, stop this nursing nonsense and let’s get married.” Miiro had a good plan. Nsuuta would start having children while he finished his diploma at Bukalasa. Then he would come home and they would carry on with their life. That plan made sense to us ordinary people, but not to Nsuuta.’
‘So?’
‘Miiro, maybe in anger, maybe because Alikisa was the next best thing, asked her to marry him.’
‘Yii, just like that?’
‘You joke with men, one moment he is dying for you, the next he is marrying your best friend.’
Kirabo clapped.
‘Truth is that when Miiro turned to Alikisa I was the first to say, “Akale, if Nsuuta’s head is sailing in the clouds, what is a young man to do?” After all, Miiro’s father built churches and Alikisa’s father was reverending them. “Maybe it was meant to be,” we said. When Alikisa’s parents heard Miiro had turned his eyes on their daughter, did they blink?’
‘No?’
‘Would you? Suddenly your daughter, not so beautiful, scoops a smart young man who comes from a solid education and whose family has so much land they don’t know what to do with; do you doze?’
‘No.’
‘By the time Nsuuta came home from Gayaza for Christmas holidays, Alikisa was married and pregnant. Luutu named their eldest child Yagala Akuliko.’
‘I have always wondered why Aunt YA had such a name.’
‘Luutu was saying to Miiro, Love the one you are with.’
‘But as soon as Nsuuta was available he danced back to her.’
‘What can I say? Men. Nsuuta devoured Miiro’s heart like no other woman.’
‘Yet Grandmother and Nsuuta got on very well in the beginning?’
‘They did. But here is the thing; Nsuuta did not return to Nattetta until ’46. At first, she worked in Mmengo Hospital and we heard stories that she was with foreigners. At the time, men came from all over Africa to study at Makerere. We heard that Nsuuta was with a Munnaigeria. And people said when it came to love, those Nigerian men took our girls to the moon. They had money and knew how to spend it, driving our girls crazy. For a while, we thought Nsuuta was lost. But, suddenly, she got a job at the new dispensary.’
‘Our dispensary at Nattetta?’
‘Luutu had recently built it next to the church.’
‘Why return?’
‘The Munnaigeria left her on the moon and went home. Nsuuta had to find her own way back to earth. But as I said, she and Miiro were deep in each other’s blood. And, perhaps, her eyes had started to die. Whatever her reason, what do we see next?’
‘What?’
‘Nsuuta and Miiro are throbbing. Not only that, Alikisa and Nsuuta are happily sharing him. Ehhuu, we heaved a sigh of relief. By then, Alikisa had had the two girls, YA and Abi. She was expecting Tom. Nsuuta too was pregnant. In our time, two women sharing a man happily was common. In my family, our Maama Mukulu used to find brides for my father. She would go home to her people for a break from marriage, as women do, and when she returned, she would say to him, “I found someone I think you will love; why not have a look and see?” And my father would marry her. All my life I never, ever saw strife among our mothers, and there were five of them. Often, we did not know who was whose mother; it did not matter because they loved us equally. But with this Christianity, all that is gone. I remember looking at Miiro and thinking What stupid man makes his two women pregnant at the same time? But then suddenly, I don’t know where trouble came from—’
‘What trouble?’
‘Aah, my child; I have finished.’
‘Grandmother assaulted Nsuuta and she lost her child?’
‘I don’t know, child. I just heard.’
‘What did you hear?’
‘That afterwards, Miiro sat the two women down and told Alikisa she would hand her child over to Nsuuta after the birth.’
‘How did Grandmother take it?’
‘How else would she take it? The owner of the child has spoken, what do you do? At least Alikisa could have another one. Nsuuta could not.’
‘Poor Grandmother.’
‘My child, nature is cruel. The child turned out to be a boy. He looked exactly like Muka Miiro. I looked at the situation and thought Real trouble has arrived.’
‘Grandmother handed over Tom willingly?’
‘Straight. After the first six months she only breastfed him during daytime when Nsuuta was at work, and Nsuuta took him home in the night. For fourteen years, all was well but then… I don’t know where trouble came from.’
The doctors walked out of Nsuuta’s cubicle and Kirabo ran to get their instructions. It was the usual. Nsuuta was to drink a lot and take the medicine as prescribed. Kirabo went into the cubicle to check on Nsuuta. She lay on her back. Kirabo returned to the foyer and told Diba, ‘She is asleep.’
‘Good.’
‘Widow Diba, I have a little question.’
‘Go on.’
‘Is Giibwa not Ganda?’
Diba sighed. ‘She is. Mwesigwa, her father, was Ganda until he married that Ssoga woman. Mwesigwa’s father and grandfather were Ganda. However, I understand that his grandfather thrice over came from Busoga. When Muka Mwesigwa found out he had roots in Busoga, she pushed him to become Ssoga again. I said, how does one revert after years and years? Then she started stirring up things everyone had forgotten, filling her daughter’s head with hate.’
Kirabo wanted to hear more, but Widow Diba was getting uncomfortable. ‘That is it,’ she said. ‘I have said enough. What you do not know you should not know, that is my motto.’
‘So it is true we raided and sold them?’
‘Child, at the time everybody raided and sold everybody; they were dark times. Let’s leave it at that.’
Widow Diba left for Nattetta before Nsuuta woke up.
Nsuuta had not lost her lumanyo entirely. She sensed Grandmother first and sat up in bed. Kirabo, who had not seen Grandmother yet, hurried to Nsuuta asking if something was wrong. Then she saw Grandmother standing at the door and screamed and ran to her, jumping up and down. ‘You have come. Oh, Jjajja, you have come.’
‘What will people say?’
‘That you care so much.’ Nsuuta spent the rest of her energy on sarcasm.
Kirabo laughed, hugging her grandmother. Grandmother glanced at Nsuuta, asked for a chair and sat by the door. ‘How is the sick one?’
‘I am fine, Alikisa, you can talk to me.’
‘If she is fine, what am I doing here?’
‘Stay awhile, Jjajja, have lunch with us and I will tell you about school. Do you know, Nsuuta has not sat up in bed at all until now, but look, you have made her.’
‘Let’s hope that sitting up is good for her.’
‘She is improving.’
After greeting and asking about the villages and the residents, the farming and the weather, Kirabo picked up the stacked aluminium containers from the locker.
‘Nsuuta, I am going to the restaurant to buy lunch.’
‘I will be fine.’
‘Jjajja, are you coming with me?’
‘Back down those stairs? I don’t love food that much.’
‘But if I leave you here with Nsuuta you might upset her.’
Grandmother threw her head back and laughed. She laughed like Kirabo had never seen her laugh. A deep raspy laugh so contagious Kirabo joined in. ‘Upset her? Oh-oh. This child is going to kill me with laughter.’
‘Thank God you came, Alikisa.’ Nsuuta could not help herself. ‘Where would you laugh like that?’
‘Jjajja, if Nsuuta gets worse tonight the villagers will point fingers at you.’
‘Fingers are pointed already, child. Why do you think I came? Go and get your lunch. If I wanted to hurt Nsuuta I would have done it long before you were born.’ She looked at Nsuuta, laughter still in her eyes and said, ‘She is actually protecting you from me,’ and they both laughed. As she walked away, Kirabo kept glancing back like she had no idea who those women were.
On Kirabo’s return, Grandmother looked away from the cubicle, her chin propped in her right palm. Nsuuta still sat up in bed. They were silent but there was no tension in the air. As Kirabo served the food, Grandmother remarked, ‘I was telling your friend here that she had done a good job of stealing love from my family.’
Kirabo stiffened. She finished serving. When she took Grandmother’s plate to her, she said, ‘No one can steal my love for you, Jjajja. Yours is yours only.’
‘How many times have you seen Tom drive his car, rush-rush, to collect me from the village the way he collected her?’
‘How many times have you been dying, Jjajja?’
‘So he is waiting until I am dying?’
‘I will tell him to come and take you for a drive.’
Grandmother laughed again because Kirabo had fallen for her trick. Kirabo stole a glance; was Grandmother loosening up? She had laughed, real laughter, twice in a brief time. But she was poking her food with a fork the way rural women do to matooke cooked in the city. ‘Unfortunately, I could not bring proper food in case your friend gets worse in the night. The world would say You mean Nsuuta waited to relapse until she ate Muka Miiro’s food?’ Nsuuta and Grandmother laughed. Grandmother pushed the plate away, as if she had no appetite to waste on tasteless food. ‘Tell your friend to get well soon. I am leaving.’ She pulled the handles of her handbag up her shoulder and stood up. Nsuuta’s eyes looked above Grandmother’s head because her sense of direction in hospital was a bit off. Then she started to turn to lie on her right. Kirabo went to help her. Grandmother frowned but did not step in to help. Instead, she instructed Kirabo where to hold Nsuuta to turn her. Nsuuta could neither lie on her left nor her right. In the end, she settled on her back again. Kirabo pulled up the covers and whispered, ‘For some reason, she never lies on her sides.’
‘I am fine,’ Nsuuta snapped. ‘Thank you for checking on us, Alikisa. See the residents for me.’
‘I will. Stay well.’
Kirabo waited a few moments and whispered, ‘I think we have tired her out.’ She took hold of Grandmother’s hand. ‘Let’s go. I will walk you down to the taxi rank.’
They had come to the stairs when Grandmother said, ‘Take me to the doctors.’
‘What?’
‘Where are the medical staff?’
‘Why?’
‘Take me where they are.’
Kirabo led her through a maze of screened-off beds, women carers sitting on the floor talking, eating, ironing, until they got to the nurses’ desk. Grandmother stepped forward and said to a nurse, ‘Musawo, I am a relative of the patient in Room 32. This is my granddaughter looking after her.’
‘Oh, patient Nsuuta at the end of the corridor?’
‘Yes.’ Grandmother flashed half a smile. ‘Look, Musawo, as you can see, I am an ignorant old woman from the rural and did not read enough books, but sometimes we old people can see.’ Kirabo looked at the nurse, her eyes beseeching her to be patient with her grandmother. ‘I know she has told you about the yellow fever and you have treated it well, but there is something else. Yellow fever is not alone.’
‘Wait, let me get her file.’ The nurse reached for a pile on top of the desk and filed through it until she found the right one. ‘Vivian Balungi Nsuuta?’
‘Those are her names.’
The nurse looked at the notes. ‘There is nothing else here.’
‘That is why I have come to you. Nsuuta was a nurse. She can hide illness. Something is wrong with her left breast. Check her and see. If I am wrong, we shall all be happy.’
‘I will make a note for the doctor.’ The nurse scribbled something.
Grandmother thanked her for the excellent job they were doing, but when they got to the stairs she sucked her teeth. ‘This hospital is staffed by goats – goats only.’
‘I thought you hated Nsuuta.’
‘It does not mean I want her dead. These useless doctors. Which medicine did they study? You sit for one moment with Nsuuta and realise she has more than yellow fever. What kind of examination did they do?’
Kirabo kept quiet.
They came down to Casualty and walked out of the hospital through the back entrance. As they reached the car park where dead ambulances were rotting, Grandmother stopped. ‘Kirabo,’ she began, looking past her. ‘Lately, you have grown not bad-looking.’ She started to walk. ‘I remarked on it to your friend, but she sneered, “You mean you are just realising?” You would think that woman has more sight than all of us combined.’ Kirabo started to walk too, but then Grandmother stopped and wagged a finger in Kirabo’s face. ‘Do not go mistaking beauty for something physical.’
For a moment Kirabo felt the urge to lean against Grandmother, close her eyes and feel her. That is how she said I love you too. Instead, she walked behind her, looking at her back. Grandmother was intact, exactly the way she had left her. She was the kind of skinny woman who devoured years without consequence. She was the same age as Nsuuta and Widow Diba, but they were worn out and threadbare in comparison. Then she was overcome by guilt and said, ‘Jjajja, I wanted to come and spend this holiday with you, but Aunt Abi has got me a temporary job in the Ministry of Finance, to get some work experience.’
‘Very good. You will come when there is time. Your grandfather and I are not going anywhere.’
That night when Nsuuta woke up they talked a little. Kirabo did not tell her what Grandmother had said to the nurses but remarked, ‘Grandmother is different these days.’
‘Different how?’
‘She laughs.’
‘Years have gone by. Age gets you to a place where you think What makes me happiest? And you focus on that. I think for her you are one of those things.’ Nsuuta paused. Then she raised herself to sit up. Kirabo propped her up with pillows. ‘But you too, Kirabo, have changed.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘You are tame. You are no longer Miiro’s wild grandchild.’ Was that regret in Nsuuta’s voice? But before Kirabo could speak, Nsuuta added, ‘By the way, your friend Giibwa left Nattetta.’
Kirabo caught her breath.
‘But you already knew that.’
‘She told me she would leave when Tom came for me.’
‘Recently, she has been coming home to visit, and people say she whistles English like she invented the language.’
‘Which English?’ Kirabo could not keep the contempt out of her voice.
‘Everyone is beneath her now.’
Kirabo laughed.
‘Just a warning. In case you think she is still the same.’
‘Hmm.’ Kirabo had no intention of letting Nsuuta know about her fight with Giibwa.
‘That whistling of English is not innocent,’ Nsuuta sighed.
‘Isn’t it?’ Kirabo feigned ignorance.
‘But if you are going to allow Kabuye’s son between your legs, take the pill first.’
‘Nsuuta!’
‘Don’t you dare lie to me when I am ill, Kirabo.’ She slipped down the pillows so that even her head was covered.
Kirabo took a long time to recover. Then she fought back. That word tame, coming from Nsuuta, had stung. ‘Nsuuta, would you rather I married with a hymen so they would bring a goat to the family?’ Nsuuta’s face remained covered under the sheet. ‘Because I would not want my hymen to be flaunted all over the villages, moral aunts brandishing it over young girls as the ultimate feminine virtue: Even that Kirabo, Miiro’s wild grandchild, fetched a goat.’ Kirabo took a breath. ‘And about being tame. Being rebellious is something I cannot afford. There was no way I was going to give Aunt Abi trouble when none of my parents would have me.’
Nsuuta sat up. ‘I did not say walk into marriage blind. I would say don’t marry at all, but if you are going to have sex, come to me and I will take you to a clinic where they will give you the right pills.’
‘I will, Nsuuta. But at the moment there are ways of playing with fire without getting burnt.’ When Nsuuta slipped back under the sheets without a retort, Kirabo knew she had scored.
When Tom came to visit the following morning, he was taken aside by a nurse who whispered hurriedly at him, glancing occasionally over to Nsuuta. When he came back, he told Kirabo to go to the foyer because the grown-ups wanted to talk. Afterwards, Tom came back and said, ‘Keep an eye on Maama Muto. If you see any changes in her, however little, tell the doctors.’
‘Is she getting worse?’
‘You know old people; they can be children sometimes.’
After the morning check-up, Nsuuta was wheeled away. She was brought back at lunchtime. At around three in the afternoon she was taken away again, this time for an X-ray. When Tom arrived, Nsuuta still had not been brought back. He went to talk to the doctors and came back frowning. Kirabo asked what was going on.
‘The doctors suspect there might be something else going on. But they are still checking.’
That night, Tom waited until Nsuuta was wheeled back. He asked Kirabo to step out of the room while they whispered. When he left, he was angry. Nsuuta had covered her head.
Nsuuta was discharged two weeks later, but she remained an outpatient. Tom took her to his house. Even Aunt Abi was apprehensive about Nsuuta convalescing at Tom’s house, but Tom insisted and took two weeks off work. Apparently, he had told Nnambi that if she could not bear Nsuuta’s presence in the house, she could go and visit her parents, but she had opted to stay. It was not until Kirabo returned home that Aunt Abi told her cancer had eaten one of Nsuuta’s breasts.