Let's Tell This Story Properly Read online

  PRAISE FOR KINTU

  “A soaring and sublime epic. One of those great stories that was just waiting to be told.”

  —Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings

  “Magisterial.”

  —Namwali Serpell, The New York Review of Books

  “With a novel that is inventive in scope, masterful in execution, she does for Ugandan literature what Chinua Achebe did for Nigerian writing.”

  —Lesley Nneka Arimah, The Guardian

  “Kintu is a masterpiece, an absolute gem, the great Ugandan novel you didn’t know you were waiting for.”

  —Aaron Bady, The New Inquiry

  “A masterpiece of cultural memory, Kintu is elegantly poised on the crossroads of tradition and modernity.”

  —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

  “Reminiscent of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, this work will appeal to lovers of African literature.”

  —Library Journal (Starred Review)

  “Makumbi takes a sniper’s aim at the themes of virility and power across time. Over the course of six rich sections, she fires not a single gratuitous shot.”

  —Public Books

  “Postcolonial literature is often thought of as a conversation between a native culture and a Western power that sought to dominate it … Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s marvelous Ugandan epic, Kintu, explodes such chauvinism.”

  —Guernica

  “Passionate, original, and sharply observed, the novel decenters colonialism and makes Ugandan experience primary.”

  —Book Riot

  “With crisp details and precise prose, Makumbi draws us into the dynamic and vast world of Uganda—its rich history, its people’s intricate beliefs, and the collective weight of their steadfast customs.”

  —World Literature Today

  “Some authors set the bar high with their debut work. Then there are authors like Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi whose first novel succeeds on such a stratospheric level it’s nearly impossible to imagine—or wait for—what she’ll write next.”

  —Iowa Gazette

  “Jennifer Makumbi’s Kintu is a charming fable, a wide-ranging historical fiction, and a critical historiography … fresh, intelligent, critical, and ambitious.”

  —Bookwitty

  “Makumbi’s characters are compelling as individuals, but it is their shared past and journey toward a shared future that elevate the novel to an epic and enigmatic masterpiece.”

  —The Riveter

  LET’S TELL THIS STORY PROPERLY

  LET’S TELL THIS STORY PROPERLY

  Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  Published by Transit Books

  2301 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, California 94612

  www.transitbooks.org

  Copyright © Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi 2019

  First published by Transit Books in 2019

  ISBN: 978-1-945492-22-8

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER:

  2019901578

  DESIGN & TYPESETTING

  Justin Carder

  DISTRIBUTED BY

  Consortium Book Sales & Distribution

  (800) 283-3572 | cbsd.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  PROLOGUE

  Christmas is Coming

  PART 1. DEPARTING

  Our Allies

  Manchester Happened

  The Nod

  Something Inside

  Malik’s Door

  Memoirs of a Namaaso

  PART 2. RETURNING

  She is Our Stupid

  My Brother, Bwemage

  The Aftertaste of Success

  Let’s Tell this Story Properly

  Love Made in Manchester

  Acknowledgements

  Damian,

  Thank you has become inadequate.

  To the fearless Ugandans in the diaspora,

  Olugambo tebalunkubira!

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  YOU KNOW WHEN your family is the poorest in the clan but you have these wheezing-rich cousins whose father sometimes helps out with your education, medical care and upkeep but sometimes threatens to withdraw his help if you don’t do as he says? You think to yourself, hmm, if I lived with them, my prospects would improve, I’d be successful, help pull my family out of the hole and the world would be boundless. You approach Uncle. Can I come and live with you? He hesitates: he has heard your story before. He’s impatient with your ‘lazy’, ‘incompetent’, ‘backward’ father who shouldn’t have had so many children. But you’re lucky; Uncle takes you in, and when you arrive at his home you join other relatives living with him and make a world. But Uncle’s children, fed up with sharing their home with cousins from all over the clan, cry out, We’re squashed, Dad. You shrink and try not to take up too much space, but it hurts when they presume things about your family. For you, the situation is more complex than an incompetent father.

  Often, when things are not going right, cousins’ resentment flares up and tantrums are thrown: Get them out of here. You shrink again, but privately you question their belief that your father should have had fewer children. After all, the cost of bringing up one of your cousins, the pressure their needs put on the earth, could have brought up six, maybe even ten, of your siblings. Their childhood is long and indulgent; so is their old age. Still, when Uncle complains about the number of your siblings, you twist your lips and keep quiet. You also swallow the stories your father told you about Uncle’s wealth. You keep your head down and try to make the most of your situation. You keep closer to the other relations Uncle is looking after—some of whom sneaked in after he said no, some of whom escaped abusive relatives, some seeking respite from strife, some who came to study but refused to go home. When we call this phenomenon extended family you people at home insist that family is family, no one is extended. I thought, maybe I should let you see for yourselves? So, here are a few unfiltered snapshots of our world.

  PROLOGUE

  Christmas is Coming

  LUZINDA SITS CURLED in his favourite spot on the windowsill in his bedroom. The window overlooks Trafford Road, a park with green railings and the village beyond. This morning, the road, the gardens and the village are wet. But it is cosy where Luzinda sits. His room is warm, and he loves being in pyjamas. Yet he is agonising. Lip-biting, teeth-grinding agonising. Yesterday he turned thirteen.

  He looks down three storeys below into the road. Strange cars have started appearing. Has the Premier League already started? It’s not yet ten in the morning but all parking spaces on his street have been taken. That means Man U will be playing at home today. The noise if they win. If he knew the number for the traffic wardens, those fans would come back to clamped cars.

  Further down the road, an old couple, the idiots, are feeding the pigeons. They tear up slices of bread and throw, tear up and throw. The pigeons are frenzied. For the past six months, pigeons have made a nest on the balcony of the flat below. They fight and flap and stink when they come to roost. Their droppings are all over the balcony.

  A memory intrudes and Luzinda’s heart jumps. His birthday is in August, which means Christmas is coming. The demon in his house breaks loose on Christmas Day. At parties too.

  His eyes wander back to the road. A cat sashays past the pigeons as if it’s a vegetarian. It crosses the road and despite its chunky size slips throu
gh the narrow railings into the park. It stops. The tail, just the tail, makes slow wave-like motions above the ground but the rest of its body is dead still. Then it launches—puff-puff, snarling, yowling—into the bush and a fox yelps and scrums out. Luzinda scrambles up and stands on his toes to see the chase through the upper pane of the sash window but is too short. Cat and fox run out of view. He holds his mouth in disbelief. A whole fox? Chased yelping and scurrying by a cat? So wrong. Like a husband walloped by his wife. A moment later, the cat saunters back into view. Its coat and tail are still puffed. It stops for a moment and its body spasms. It looks back as if saying Let me see you come back to my park again, and struts past the pigeons and out of view.

  ‘Ktdo.’ Luzinda clicks his tongue because that’s how upside down this country is. A cat walks past pigeons and chases a fox five times its size.

  His door bursts open.

  ‘Did you call?’ Bakka, his seven-year-old brother, is breathless. Before he answers, Bakka steps in. ‘You know you shouldn’t sit on that windowsill; it totally creeps—’

  Luzinda throws a styrofoam cup but Bakka jumps back just in time. The cup hits the door and falls to the floor. Bakka steps in again, happy to have elicited a reaction from his brother.

  ‘That’s why you’re not growing tall,’ he says. ‘Curled up on that windowsill all the time.’

  Luzinda ignores him.

  ‘That’s how stalkers start’—Bakka pretends to shudder—‘by spying on people.’

  Luzinda rises from the windowsill in a now you’ve gone too far way.

  ‘Don’t let Mum catch you sitting there, not after yesterday.’

  Both Luzinda’s legs are on the floor now, his eyes narrowed.

  Bakka bangs the door and runs downstairs giggling. He has banged the door so hard the picture of Christ on Luzinda’s wall is askew. Luzinda sucks his teeth and starts to make his way to the understairs cupboard. He stumbles on something and looks down. It is the pile of his birthday presents from yesterday. He kicks them out of the way.

  Outside his room, the house is silent. He runs down the stairs, fetches the stepladder and brings it to his bedroom. He stands on the top step and adjusts the picture so that Christ’s hands are stretched towards his bed.

  As he takes the stepladder back downstairs, yesterday returns so forcefully he can no longer block it from his mind. It awakens a snake of guilt, then fear. The first thing he realised was how close Christmas was. The other was that life hurts hardest at thirteen. He is more aware now; even thoughts hurt.

  Best to go home. In Uganda God was hands-on. He watched and recorded every wicked deed, word and thought in his black book. Then he sent his angels to stockpile firewood in hell to burn you when you died. That’s why grown-ups at home behaved—no messing about. But here in Manchester, where God gave up a long time ago, grown-ups are out of control. Children have no power to keep them in line. But how do you tell your parents, who keep telling you that they only came to give you a bright future, that the family needs to return home?

  • • •

  A month ago, Luzinda had told his mother that he did not want a birthday party this year. She had dismissed him with, ‘Nonsense; what child does not want a birthday party?’ He had appealed to his dad, but he was useless. Talk to your mother is all he ever says.

  Luzinda had always suspected that his birthday parties were as much for his parents as they were for him. And yesterday, when his mother ignored his wishes, confirmed this. How do you explain the amount of beer and wine she bought? And you know how on the way back from a party, your parents start digging into their so-called friends—so-and-so is getting deported…so-and-so has bought a Mercedes yet lives like a rat…they are on benefits…so-and-so married for the visa…so-and-so’s children have turned into British brats…that daughter of theirs must be a lezibian; did you see her haircut…so-and-so are same clan, same totem but cohabiting, spit, spit. Luzinda had been certain that after his party, on their way home, guests would sink their talons into his parents. So, yesterday when the guests started to arrive, he locked himself in the bathroom. Asking where the birthday boy was, uncle after uncle, then aunty after aunty stood outside the bathroom door, cajoling him to come out and open his presents, but Luzinda remained mute. Then that Nnalongo sighed, ‘Children brought up in Bungeleza: they’re impossible,’ and Aunty Poonah was quick to justify herself: ‘That’s why I left mine back home, hm-hm, I couldn’t manage.’ As if children brought up in Africa were perfect, as if grown-ups who grew up in Uganda weren’t liars and—

  ‘Still,’ Nnalongo had whispered, ‘something is wrong somewhere in this house.’

  That made Luzinda sit up; he should have locked himself in the store. Too late; the guests were going to tear into his parents’ backs anyway.

  After a while his mum came to the door and he heard Aunt Nnambassa, Mulungi’s mum, say to her, ‘But this son of yours, Sikola! Something psychological is going on.’

  ‘Yes, he’s too quiet, too watchful for his age.’

  ‘Talk to a psychiatrist and see,’ Aunty Nnam suggested.

  Mum did not respond. Instead she knocked on the door with renewed vigour. ‘Luzinda, Luzinda? Come out, sweetie. Come tell Mummy what’s wrong.’

  At the sound of his mother’s voice Luzinda had squeezed into the tiny space between the toilet bowl and the bathtub, put his chin on his knees, covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut until she stopped. But Dad did not try to lure him out of the bathroom; not once. In the end, the grown-ups sucked their teeth at the door and gave up.

  They left early. Normally, when Ugandans come around, they talk and drink, talk and drink way past midnight. But by eight o’clock they were all gone. They had drunk too much but there was no spare toilet. After the last guest had gone, Bakka came to the bathroom door and whispered, ‘Luz, Luz, they’ve gone. Dad’s gone to see them off!’

  Luzinda opened the door a bit and listened. Silence. He opened it further and sniffed the air. Nothing. He stepped outside but did not let go of the door. He listened again. Finally, he walked a few steps into the sitting room and peered and sniffed. Then he looked into his brother’s eyes, at the question in his eyes. Bakka shrugged: I don’t know why it didn’t happen. Luzinda had put his arm around his brother’s shoulder, pulled him in and kissed his ear. Then he walked to his bedroom and got into bed.

  At around nine, Dad came to his bedroom to check that he was properly tucked in. He said, ‘Look, Luzinda, I’ve brought your presents.’

  Luzinda pretended to be asleep. He heard Dad put the packages down on the floor. After he put the books away and turned the computer off, Dad turned out the lights and began to leave. But then he paused at the door as if thinking. He came back and Luzinda felt him sit on his bed. He felt Dad’s breath on his cheeks before the feather of a kiss, then a warm hand on his shoulder, but Luzinda remained silent. He fell asleep before his father left the room.

  • • •

  The door opens again. Luzinda prepares to chase Bakka, but it’s Mum. He looks away. Then steals a glance. Is she getting thinner? Her face is puffed as though liquids have collected beneath the skin. She has seen the unopened presents on the floor. Though her eyes are red and swollen, Luzinda has seen the hurt in them.

  ‘Come and get something to eat, Luzinda.’ Her voice is hoarse. She does not rebuke him for sitting on the windowsill; she does not mention yesterday, she does not comment on the unopened presents. Luzinda gets up and stomps past her. She sighs and closes the door.

  At the end of September Luzinda shoves his still-unopened birthday presents under the bed.

  • • •

  Christmas is two months away now, but Luzinda has done nothing about it except worry. But what is worrying going to achieve: grab Christmas’s legs and tie them together so it won’t come? Sundays are the hardest, especially when he doesn’t have a book to read. He sits on the windowsill and conjures all kinds of Yuletide horrors. Now, determined that his family will return
to Uganda before the dreaded day, he gets off the windowsill and kneels below the picture of Christ. He asks him to send the family back home. If he does, Luzinda will go to church every Sunday and get Saved. He will abandon his archaeologist dream and become a pastor when he grows up.

  He gets off his knees and walks to his parents’ bedroom. He knocks. No reply. Knocks again. He’s sure his mother is in; she does not work on weekends and he heard her come home last night. Talking to Dad would be a waste of time. He would only say Ask your mother. He knocks insistently. A faint voice comes.

  ‘Come in.’

  He pushes the door and a warm wet stench wipes his face. He holds his breath. The room is so dark he can’t see his mother.

  ‘Morning, Mum.’ He gulps the stench. ‘Should I open the curtains?’

  ‘No, darling, I’ve got a headache: what do you want so early in the morning?’

  Luzinda resists the urge to say that it’s past ten o’clock. He stands close to the chest of drawers to keep the door open.

  ‘Mum, can we go home for Christmas?’

  His eyes begin to adjust. Mum’s head is up. She pats the pillow as if to fluff it before collapsing onto it. She lifts her head again.

  ‘Darling, do you know the cost of flying four people to Uganda during the Christmas season?’

  Luzinda keeps quiet. He would like to open the window and let in some fresh air. Mum attempts to sit up—she pants and grunts as if shifting a boulder—and fails.

  ‘How about me and Bakka only?’

  ‘I can’t send you back on your own. We should eat Christmas together, as a family.’

  Luzinda pauses. He pauses too long. As if there is something else to say, but then he steps back and out of the room. He closes the door and goes back to the windowsill. He curls up so tightly he can smell the fabric conditioner on his shirt. He does not see the fat cat cross the road and slip between the park railings. It would have cheered him up; he has respect for that cat now. He decides it’s time to seek outside intervention.