It was coming to two when Kirabo arrived at Miiro’s house and Sio carried on to Kamuli. Grandfather was at the back of the house, listening to O Mugga Wakati, a Luganda adaptation of The River Between on Radio Uganda. Three children between eight and eleven years old sat around the radio with him, listening. Kirabo did not recognise them. She wondered where her grandparents had picked them up from. Probably, they had come for the last rites and not gone back home. She could hear Grandmother say to someone from Timiina, If you are struggling, our house is empty – we have good schools close by.
After greeting her, Grandfather told her that Nsuuta had relapsed. Grandmother had gone down the road to take her lunch and give her a bath. Kirabo asked why Nsuuta had gone back to her house when it was agreed before that she would move in with them. Miiro clicked his tongue. ‘When she relapsed, Nsuuta’s obstinacy came back. She hates herself. She does not want help. She wants to die in her house.’ Grandmother, Grandfather, Diba, and sometimes Ssozi’s wives took turns at sleeping at Nsuuta’s house to make sure she slept fine in the night.
Kirabo got up to make her way to Nsuuta’s. First, she crossed the road to greet Ssozi and his family. By the time she got to where the koparativu stowa used to be, the sky had turned dark. Wind was in haste. As she turned into Nsuuta’s courtyard the clouds started to spit sparse but sturdy gobs. They hit the ground hard and dried promptly. The earth emitted that delicious but fleeting scent, the one when the rain first touches it. She closed her eyes but by the time she tilted her head to suck it, the wind had whipped it away. Then rain came down as if being chased. She ran. Before she got to the door, she called, ‘Abeeno?’
Grandmother’s face came to the door. ‘Kirabo. Come in, come in, before you get wet. When did you arrive?’ She hugged her. ‘Have you eaten?’ The rest of her words were muted by the sudden raucousness of rain on the roof. Nsuuta and Grandmother had just finished having lunch. Or rather Grandmother had; Nsuuta had not touched hers. She lay on the mattress in the living room, close to the side wall where there was no window. She said something but Kirabo did not hear the words. Kirabo knelt by her mattress, held her hand and rubbed her cheek on Nsuuta’s. Nsuuta was emaciated. It did not make sense how quickly she had deteriorated. Kirabo sat down in the place Nsuuta used to sit, and stared through the door into the road.
A gust burst forth. The branches of the guava tree near the road whipped the air. Nsuuta’s goats, tethered on the fringes of the compound, stood still. The iron sheets on Nsuuta’s kitchen threatened to fly off. The storm was like a straying husband who, on returning home, tends to overdo his gestures of affection. It stopped, hushed.
Nsuuta’s voice came: ‘Help me up,’ and she felt for Kirabo’s hands in the air. Kirabo sat her up. ‘I want to go in the rain.’
‘What?’
‘Hurry up before it starts again.’
Kirabo looked at Grandmother, but she said, ‘Help her undress.’
‘You are not serious.’ Nsuuta was so skeletal the storm would blow her away.
Another gust hit the house, sending window shutters flying back and forth. She heard the muvule, close to where the koparativu stowa used to be, groan. The angles of the iron sheets on Nsuuta’s kitchen roof curved inwards. And then it stopped, clean, silent. Kirabo was mesmerised. Rain in Nattetta seemed so theatrical. Tiled roofs in the city muted the drama.
‘Get her a towel.’ Grandmother’s voice was loud in the hush. ‘It is hanging on the door in the back room.’
When she returned, Nsuuta’s busuuti had fallen around her waist. The only thing remaining on her body was the left breast. It had swelled lumpily. The skin around the areola was punctured with tiny, tiny prick holes. The nipple had been sucked into the areola. Her chest was pale, but the breast was grey and askew, as if it grew towards the armpit. Grandmother wrapped a towel around her and ordered, ‘Get her slippers.’ When Kirabo brought them, Grandmother was helping Nsuuta on to her feet. The busuuti fell around her ankles. ‘Take a stool outside to the back yard for her before the rain comes back.’
As Kirabo returned, the rain hit again: Grandmother used gestures to communicate. Nsuuta pushed her feet into her thong slippers. Grandmother and Kirabo held Nsuuta around the waist while she slung around their necks. They walked her from the diiro through the back room and paused at the door, watching the rain intensify. Kirabo looked at Grandmother. Nsuuta must have felt her misgivings for she said, ‘Hurry up,’ her hands impatient around their shoulders. Grandmother removed the towel from Nsuuta and told Kirabo to go and light a fire in the kitchen. Instead, Kirabo looked around the back yard as if anyone might be watching through Nsuuta’s mpaanyi hedge in that torrent.
Grandmother led Nsuuta into the rain. At the first sting, Nsuuta swore upon her grandmother, Naigaga. Then she smiled up at Grandmother like a brave child. She felt for the stool. When she got to it, she let go of Grandmother. By the time she was settled on the stool, the upper part of Grandmother’s busuuti clung to her skin. She gave Nsuuta a cake of soap. Nsuuta waved Grandmother out of the rain, but Grandmother hesitated. Nsuuta rubbed soap in her hair, on her arms, stomach and legs, then dropped the soap on the grass. Grandmother watched her for a few more seconds then stepped back on the verandah. The wind blew the rain and Nsuuta shrieked, arms in the air, like a little girl. Grandmother stepped into the back room, away from the gusts, her busuuti dripping on the floor.
‘Why not change into one of Nsuuta’s busuuti?’ Kirabo suggested.
‘I will get wet again when I go to get her,’ Grandmother said, but she watched Nsuuta with such love.
Kirabo had turned her attention to Nsuuta when Grandmother stepped away from the door. She did not say Look away Kirabo; I am undressing, as she used to when Kirabo was young, but Kirabo was aware of her stripping her clothing layer by layer – the sash, the busuuti, the string that fastened the kikoy, the kikoy, bra, petticoat and finally, knickers. Next thing Kirabo saw was Grandmother flying past, naked as a newborn, and jumping into the rain. Nsuuta looked up and shrieked, ‘Yeee,’ as if she had seen her. Grandmother ran along the hedge, skipping and jumping. Kirabo looked back to where her grandmother had stripped. Her clothes lay in a heap. An intense sensation dried her mouth, as if she had caught her grandmother doing witchcraft. Nsuuta’s warning about women’s nakedness came, but Kirabo’s sense of shame held her prisoner. This was her grandmother running naked, not some girl in St Theresa’s. Grandmother skipped and danced and threw her arms in the air, yelping. Kirabo looked over the back yard again to make sure no one else had seen them, then she stepped away to go and light the fire.
By the time the fire caught and she had added bigger pieces of firewood, the grip of shame had relaxed. Logic started to return. Grandmother has nakedness. You can look at her. Grandmother is human. She has desires, like running naked in the rain. Shame on you; Grandmother does not need a reason to strip and run naked in the rain. You are one of them. Nsuuta wasted her time talking to you. She prayed Grandmother had not seen her shame.
When she got back to the back door, Nsuuta was standing unaided. Her head was thrown back, her mouth open. Rain fell into her mouth. She closed it, lifted her head and swallowed. Then she threw it back again and opened her mouth. Grandmother danced as she washed the soap out of her face. This is exactly why ancients came up with a Nnamazzi from the sea, Kirabo thought. When Grandmother saw Kirabo at the door, she stopped playing. As if she had remembered that she was a grandmother. Kirabo waved and smiled, but Grandmother got a foam sponge, rubbed soap into it and started to rub Nsuuta’s neck, back, arms, legs, and then, carefully, her chest. Nsuuta kept rubbing rainwater out of her face and stamping her feet. Even though the rain was still heavy, Grandmother took a basin and drew water from a barrel. She called in English, ‘Ready?’
‘Yes.’
Grandmother threw half the water over Nsuuta’s back. Nsuuta squealed and stamped, swearing upon Naigaga as if she was a goddess.
‘Turn around.’
Nsuuta turned and Grandmother threw the rest of the water over her lower front. Nsuuta stomped her feet, flailing her arms. Grandmother went back to the barrel for more. This time she poured it down Nsuuta’s head slowly. Nsuuta gasped and gasped, shaking her head and trying to scream, but she had to catch her breath.
Kirabo bit back the tears.
Grandmother took a loofah sponge, rubbed in soap and scrubbed herself. She finished and scrubbed the insides of both their slippers. She helped sit Nsuuta down on the stool and scrubbed her feet with a kikongoliro, a burnt maize cob. She helped Nsuuta into her slippers. Then she unplaited the knots in her hair, rubbed soap in and lathered. But instead of pouring water on herself to rinse the soap out, she let the rain run down on her. She stretched her arms above her head and stood on her toes, as if to touch the sky. She looked at Kirabo and laughed. Grandmother’s teeth were ridiculously white and neat. Then the gap in her upper front teeth, which she had never shared with her progeny. She brought her arms down and tried to touch the ground with her palms, like an athlete stretching. Then she stretched backwards. It was awkward because bending backwards was not easy. It was as if she was reaching into the past to retrieve something. That was when Kirabo began to see her grandmother’s body. A woman’s body, like hers in every way except age. Her skin, from the shoulders down to the legs, was younger and lighter and smoother than her arms, neck and face. A rectangular patch, the neckline of the busuuti, had formed on her chest and back. Her breasts looked twenty years younger. Her stomach, though small, shook jelly-like when she stamped. Two thin folds of skin had formed in the ribs. Funny, her pubis was not grey like her hair; it was brown, as if dyed with henna. Her legs were skinny but no longer tight. Now, her arms spread out, she twirled round, round and Kirabo feared she would trip. That is Alikisa, Kirabo told herself. She was once a girl. The Alikisa who Grandmother had stifled under the layers of grandmotherhood and motherhood and Muka Miirohood. For a moment Kirabo was tempted to strip and join Nsuuta and this Alikisa, but it did not feel right. She was not part of their past. Besides, she was on her period. She stepped away from the door and into the living room. The belief at St Theresa’s was that every girl needs that girlfriend, nfa-nfe, for whom she would prise open the crack of her buttocks to check the pain up there without worrying about the ugliness. Because only a woman knows how to love a woman properly. Nsuuta brought Alikisa out of Grandmother. Kirabo was thankful for Atim. They understood each other without language, without complication. Even Nnakku had trusted her ugliest secret to Leeya. She hoped that Giibwa had found someone else.
The rain began to thin. When she heard Grandmother calling, she went to the bedroom and grabbed the towel on the bed. Grandmother led Nsuuta to the verandah and Kirabo wrapped the towel around her.
‘Check in the cupboard for another towel.’
Kirabo found it and gave it to Grandmother. Then she led Nsuuta, who was now shaking from the cold, into the bedroom and rubbed her until she stopped trembling. She oiled her skin, dressed her in a nightie and sat her on the bed, wrapped in a blanket. Then she got the stool from the back yard, wiped it and took it to the kitchen. She stoked the fire and came back to the house. She helped Nsuuta to the kitchen, sat her on the stool, the cancerous breast facing the door. Kirabo asked, ‘How do you feel now?’
‘Life has returned.’
Kirabo poked the fire. The embers sparked. The flames were a deep yellow, smokeless. Then she sat down on the ramp to watch Nsuuta. Nsuuta opened her palms and brought them closer to the fire.
‘Go get out of those damp clothes, Kirabo, or you will be buried instead of me.’
‘I did not bring any. I will have to borrow from someone.’
Nsuuta smiled but did not pursue it. When Nsuuta was warm, she sat back and said, ‘You have surprised me, Kirabo.’
‘Me? How?’
‘I thought you would fly. I thought you would break rules, upset things, laying waste to everything right and moral. I guess you really clipped your wings and buried them.’
‘Nsuuta, this is the second time you are saying that.’
‘Because I think you are going to marry Kabuye’s son as soon as you finish your degree.’
‘He believes in mwenkanonkano.’
‘Clever boy.’
‘And he is not afraid of the vagina.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I showed him.’
‘So that is how he took the sting out of you.’
‘No sting was taken. If we acquiesce in hiding our bodies, we allow the myths to stay.’
‘But taking away the myths takes the little power some women have.’
‘Nsuuta, it is dangerous keeping feminine power down there. Whether it is in myths or in mystery, we put a target on our bodies. Sooner or later, they come to raid. Unless you did not hear about the women raped during the war.’
For a long time, Nsuuta kept quiet. Then she sighed, ‘I guess you are growing up.’
‘Now you are worried?’
‘Nothing takes the sting out of a woman like marriage. And when children arrive, the window closes. Wife, mother, age, and role model – the “respect” that comes with these roles is the water they pour on your fire.’
‘Nsuuta, every woman resists. Often it is private. Most of our resistance is so everyday that women don’t think twice about it. It is life. Even the worst of us, like Aunt YA, who massage the male ego with “Allow men to be men”, are not really shrinking but managing their men.’
Nsuuta was silent as if digesting Kirabo’s words. Then she sighed. ‘I wish I could see you, Kirabo.’
‘I think you do, Nsuuta.’
‘I would like to see how much of Alikisa is in you.’
Kirabo laughed and whispered, ‘I have her skinny legs.’
‘Promise me you will pass on the story of the first woman – in whatever form you wish. It was given to me by women in captivity. They lived an awful state of migration, my grandmothers. Telling origin stories was their act of resistance. I only added on a bit here and a bit there. Stories are critical, Kirabo,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘The minute we fall silent, someone will fill the silence for us.’
Grandmother appeared in the doorway wearing Nsuuta’s busuuti. Mischief still shone in her eyes.
‘Jjajja, you look twenty years old,’ Kirabo said.
‘Listen to this child: I am an old woman.’
Nsuuta feigned irritation. ‘Alikisa, for once take a compliment. Me, I am starving.’
‘Ah ha.’ Grandmother clapped as if she had found the medicine for Nsuuta’s appetite. ‘We have been begging you to eat all this time.’
She picked the knife stuck in one of the kitchen beams, plucked a few fingers of matooke off a bunch leaning against the wall and started to peel. ‘I will boil these in tomatoes and onion leaves, maybe drop doodo on top?’ Nsuuta nodded. ‘Maybe a dollop of ghee?’ Nsuuta shook her head.
When the food sat on the fire, Nsuuta, now warm, asked to be moved to the doorway where the cold would keep her left breast cool.
‘I saw my mother, Nnakku.’
Both women looked at her.
‘She just stood there, unspeaking. Then she denied. “I never birthed her”; that is her story.’
‘Oh, you stop; stop right there.’ Gravelly Grandmother had returned. ‘You want us to feel sorry you have found out that a woman who has never sought you once in nineteen years does not want you? If that is what you are looking for you have come to the wrong place. My child, Abi, has been there for you. From the moment she heard you had arrived in Nattetta, Abi was there, loving you. Tell me what she has not done. But do you see her? No. Now that your craving has been sated, settle down and love the mother you are with.’
‘True, Alikisa, but it was important for Kirabo to see this rejection for herself, otherwise the heart keeps hoping.’
Grandmother looked at Kirabo and relented. ‘Okay, now you know. I don’t want to hear you have gone looking for her again.’ She stepped outside to pick vegetables in Nsuuta’s garden.
Kirabo stood up to go. Nsuuta touched her. ‘Don’t feel down. That is your grandmother’s love speaking. She hurts deeply, and it hurts when you are hurt, especially when she does not know how to stop it. Don’t tell Abi you went looking for your mother. She is the same. They have tried to be your mother. They might feel like they have failed.’
‘I won’t.’ Kirabo put her cheek on Nsuuta’s and rubbed it, then the other. ‘I will see you next weekend.’
‘Greet everyone for us.’
Kirabo went to the garden and said goodbye to her grandmother, who was still picking doodo spinach.
When she got to the main road, it was empty. Nattetta was silent. That silence that falls after a thunderstorm. As if the world is still in awe. Residents were indoors – men in their bedrooms listening to radios, women weaving mats, children in kitchens roasting and munching maize and groundnuts. The air was fresh and crisp. Dust had washed away from foliage along the road. She started to walk, but her shoes were heavy. They had collected mud as she walked across Nsuuta’s yard. Kirabo kicked at the tarmac on the road to shake it off, but it stuck. She picked a twig and scraped the sludge off her shoes. When she stood up, her watch said it was five o’clock.
As she walked, Kirabo’s mind went back to Nsuuta, to how nature had melted her body away. Yet she felt neither pain nor regret. Even though there would always be questions she needed to ask her, even though she still wanted to look at Nsuuta, which was like looking in a mirror, to see the parts of herself that were yet to grow, she was ready to let her go. Kirabo closed her eyes to the tears because there was kindness in the way she was losing Nsuuta. Besides, she had this stubborn conviction that since the world had created Nsuuta’s captive grandmothers, and had given her Nsuuta and Aunt Abi and Jjajja Nsangi and Kana, there were other women out there.