The First Woman Read online

  ‘“We were born multiple like twins – Wasswa,

  But father had dropped a heavy word – Wasswa.

  You bear a girl don’t bother bringing her home – Wasswa,

  But a boy, bring the boy home – Wasswa.

  Oh, Wasswa, you are a lie – Wasswa…”

  ‘Luzze looked at his son, then at the girl, at the son again, then the girl. Finally, it dawned. He lodged his spear so forcefully into the earth it quivered. “Where is she? Today she will—” He did not complete the threat. The misnaming of his family – a Wasswa called Mulinde? And poor Nnakato denied sunshine? Then there was himself, Ssalongo, ultra-virile, called plain Luzze, like ordinary men.

  ‘For some time, nothing stirred. Just this long hush that fell over the gallants and over the matooke plantation and stretched to where the women and the cowards stood. Now and again, the real men shook their heads and sucked their teeth, but no words. Their spears lay useless on the ground. You see, in the face of a singing child, the weapons accused them.

  ‘“Women,” one of the heroes finally sighed, “the way they seem so weak and helpless and you feel sorry for them. But I am telling you, beneath that helplessness they are deep; a dangerous depth without a bottom.” He nailed the words into a fist with an open palm. “You live with them, love them and have children with them, thinking they are fellow humans, but I am telling you, you know nothing.”

  ‘“Kdto. Even then” – another shook his head – “this one is a woman and a half.”

  ‘“Me, I gave up on women a long time ago,” another said. “You expect them to do this, they do that. You think they are here but they are there. Today they are this, tomorrow they are that. A woman will kill you with your eyes open like this” – he opened his eyes wide – “but you will not see it coming.”

  ‘But it was the women who were most enraged. You know what they say: no wrath like moral women against a wicked one. At the sight of the child, the good women of the community lacerated themselves with fury.

  ‘“A whole woman – hmm? With breasts – hmm? To bury her own child in an anthill?”

  ‘“She is no woman, that one – she is an animal.”

  ‘“It is such women who make us all look bad.”

  ‘“And you wonder why the world thinks we are all evil.”

  ‘“Where is she? Let her come and explain.”

  ‘The women so incensed themselves that had they got their hands on Luzze’s woman, they would have ripped her to shreds. As for me, Kirabo Nnamiiro, I could not wait for retribution. I hurried home to Nattetta on these feet’ – Kirabo pointed to her feet – ‘to tell the tale of a woman who buried her daughter in an anthill to remain in marriage.’

  For a moment, the house was silent. Kirabo had begun to revel in the success of her storytelling when she sensed an anxiety in the air. As if she had stumbled on to something she should not know. But then Grandfather broke out: ‘Oh, ho ho ho. Is this child a griot or is she something else? Ah, ah, this I have never seen. Just like my grandmother. When my grandmother raised her voice in a tale, even the mice fell silent.’

  ‘Dala dala,’ Grandmother agreed.

  But the teenagers did not congratulate her. Girls stood up and threw the boys off their beds. The boys slid down, yawned and ambled towards their bedroom. The teenagers’ rejection of her story stung. Kirabo’s head dropped, her eyes welling up. That was when she whispered, ‘Where is my mother?’, making sure her grandparents did not hear.

  The teenagers stopped, exchanged looks.

  ‘I want to go to my mother,’ Kirabo mumbled. She was sure her mother would love her story.

  ‘Ha,’ a boy clapped in belated awe. ‘Did you hear Kirabo’s story?’

  ‘Me, I told you a long time ago – that child is gifted.’

  ‘Too gifted. I couldn’t tell stories at her age.’

  ‘I still couldn’t, even if you paid me.’ That was Gayi, one of the big girls.

  The teenagers were working hard at their awe because if Grandfather found out Kirabo had been made to long for her mother, someone was going to cry. Kirabo had to be consoled before she went to bed.

  ‘Oh, Kirabo’ – Gayi’s crooning would melt a stone – ‘is sleep troubling you? Let me take you outside to relieve yourself.’ She held Kirabo’s hand and led her into the diiro, the living and dining room, picked up the hurricane lamp on the coffee table and stepped outside. Normally, Kirabo enjoyed their mawkish attention after she threatened the teenagers, but not this time. No one had answered her question about her mother. She slumped into self-pity.

  ‘My mother does not want me.’

  The teenagers stiffened.

  ‘Because I am a witch.’

  Kirabo did not see them relax. She had never confessed about her two selves, let alone flying, but that day the pain was intense.

  ‘That is silly, Kirabo.’ Gayi rubbed the back of her neck. ‘How can you be a witch?’

  ‘Then where is she?’

  ‘We don’t know. No one does.’

  The other teenagers, who had also come out to use the toilet, remained quiet; a desperate quiet, as if Kirabo had opened the doorway to where a monster was chained.

  ‘Don’t think about her.’ Gayi pulled Kirabo close to herself. ‘Think about Tom and how he loves you.’

  ‘Indeed,’ the teenagers agreed.

  ‘And you know your grandparents would give the world for you.’

  ‘Too true,’ a boy said. ‘I tell you, Kirabo, if you died today, those two would offer to be buried instead.’

  Kirabo smiled despite her pain. It was true, although Grandmother loved her carefully because loving her too much could be tragic. But Grandfather was brazen. He did not care that she might get spoilt. And Kirabo wielded his love ruthlessly over the teenagers and the villages. As for Tom, her father, his love was in a hurry. He came briefly from the city and wrapped it around her for an hour or two. Nonetheless, that night, Kirabo felt that once again the family had avoided telling her about her mother. Yet to ask her grandparents would be to say their love was not enough.

  As she waited for the teenagers taking turns to use the toilet, she looked around. The night was solid. The moon was mean and remote, the stars thin and scanty. A shooting star fell out of the sky, but as Kirabo gasped, it vanished. My mother is somewhere under that sky. Perhaps she found out her baby had a split self and abandoned me. Perhaps I started flying out of my body as soon as I was born. Perhaps and perhaps swirled, stirring a pain she could not take to Grandfather or Grandmother and say Jjajja, it hurts here.

  This is when Kirabo decided to consult Nsuuta, the blind witch down the road. Though Nsuuta was practically blind, behind her blindness she could see. But Nsuuta was not just a witch – she was Grandmother’s foe. Their feud was Mount Kilimanjaro. Apparently, Nsuuta had stolen love from the family. Tom, Kirabo’s father, loved Nsuuta as much as Grandmother, his own mother. Some said he loved Nsuuta more. If that is not witchery, then there is no witchery in the world. Thus Kirabo consulting Nsuuta meant betraying Grandmother in the most despicable way. But that night, with none of her family offering to help find her mother, Kirabo saw no other option.

  2

  ‘Sit properly!’

  Kirabo snapped her legs closed.

  ‘Hffm.’ A boy turned his head away, fanning his scrunched-up nose as if the smell from between her legs was killing him.

  ‘Thu,’ another dry-spat. ‘She is twelve, but we still remind her.’

  Kirabo tightened her legs.

  ‘Kirabo’ – Gayi’s voice was soft – ‘you cannot sit like men. Always kneel. You will not offend anyone that way.’

  Kirabo got down on her knees and sat back on her heels in a feminine posture. But inside she was tremulous with palpitations. Revulsion, self-disgust and anger tore at her; she never chose to be born with that thing.

  ‘That is better,’ Gayi was saying. ‘When you sit on a chair, cross your legs at the ankles to—’

 
Kirabo did not see it happen. She blinked once and next her evil self was out of her body and into the room. She flitted from wall to wall, like a newborn ghost lost. She flew with eyes closed because the emotion was too intense. For a long time, she swooped and darted, her mind raging over this foul body that made people spit. She swooped and darted, swooped and darted, a bat spooked in daytime.

  But then, outside the house, it started to rain. The din on the iron roof was so harsh it muted everything. She stopped flying, hovered and listened to the rain. There was something magical about rain pummelling iron sheets. It soothed, lulled. Her breathing slowed. Calm descended. She opened her eyes. The beams, big and black, were so close she could touch them. The walls seemed to have hemmed them in. The rain stopped. It stopped suddenly. As if it too was listening. Matalisi, a radio programme, wafted like a whisper. When the voices of the teenagers drifted to her, Kirabo looked below.

  In a corner, her body was fidgeting in the feminine posture. Kirabo had not learnt to sit like other women. Her legs hurt easily. Guilt set in about leaving her good self down there under the bullying eyes of the teenagers. The thought set her heart racing, emotion rising again. Luckily, the rain came back, this time wild, as if a giant in the sky was pouring pebbles on the roof. It drowned her racing heart and it slowed. Yet she could not find rest. She decided to fly out of the room.

  On the right was Grandfather’s bedroom. If she flew in there, he was probably dyeing his hair with Kanta using a blackened toothbrush. Or he was screwing the segments of his Gillette razor together, readying himself to brush the soapy lather across his jaw and shave, making faces as he went. Grandfather’s bedroom smelt of Barbasol.

  To the left was Grandmother’s bedroom. No chance of flying in there. It was the darkest and stuffiest room in the house. Its small window, which Grandmother opened grudgingly, never refreshed the room.

  She flew through the third door into the diiro. She ignored the pictures on the walls – a blue-eyed Christ with peculiarly feminine hands on a calendar, Sir Edward Muteesa, whose handsomeness made women swoon, then her favourite picture, Grandmother and Grandfather on their wedding day. Instead, she soared to her favourite place, the ceiling. She turned, lay flat on her back and stared at the ceiling. She counted the patterns of squares, deepening her solitude. There were smaller squares within the squares; she counted those too. But there were even littler ones in those, and then littler ones within them, until the ceiling was nothing but a swarm of squares. Tranquillity unfurled like a blanket of clouds. Her seclusion was complete. The rain was background noise. The anger, the revulsion, even the disgust at the foulness between her legs, drained from her body and dripped to the floor. Lull.

  She did not know how long she had been up on the ceiling when she heard someone calling.

  ‘Kirabo?’

  She plummeted…

  ‘Your grandmother’s calling you.’

  …and fell back into her body. A trembling feverishness gripped her. The walls of the back room were unsteady. She lifted her bottom off her heels. The left leg was dead, the right one hurt desperately. She closed her eyes to stop the dizziness and stretched out her legs to allow blood to flow into them.

  ‘Kirabo, did I say your grandmother’s calling you?’

  She opened her eyes. The world was steady now.

  ‘Kirabo!’

  ‘What? My legs are numb!’

  ‘Don’t you snap at me.’

  ‘Are you sure that child is not hard of hearing?’

  ‘No, just selective; she hears what she wants to hear.’

  ‘I swear she fell asleep.’

  ‘Did I hear someone picking on kabejja?’ Grandfather’s voice came from his bedroom. ‘Is it possible she is tired?’

  The teenagers fell silent, but their eyes made threats. Kirabo hid her smile as she stood up. She was relieved. The teenagers hadn’t seen her flight – they were irritated, not worried.

  Outside, darkness was total. A residual drizzle from the downpour persisted. Kirabo sidled along the verandah until it ran out. For a moment, she stood on the edge, dreading the mud. Then she plunged. The cold of the rain stung. She tried to sprint, but the mud held back her slippers, sucking them away from the soles of her feet.

  ‘Where were you?’ Grandmother asked when Kirabo got to the kitchen. ‘I have been calling and calling.’

  Kirabo shivered.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She nodded.

  Grandmother looked in her face, then felt Kirabo’s forehead with the back of her hand. Reassured, she said, ‘Take that basket of food to the house.’

  It was two days since Kirabo had made up her mind to consult Nsuuta, the blind witch. Two days during which she had not found a moment to slip away. But after this flight to the ceiling, right in front of the teenagers, she had to create an opportunity. What next: flying in class during lessons?

  3

  The moment presented itself at dusk the following day. Grandfather was in his bedroom listening to Omulimi, a farmers’ programme on the radio. Grandmother was getting supper ready. The teenagers had gone to fetch water. Kirabo was not welcome at the well in the evening because that was when the big boys were sweet on village girls and the big girls lowered their guard around village boys. Apparently, Kirabo had a nasty habit of dropping these things into conversation with her grandparents. Whenever she tried to join the teenagers, they hissed threats. There was still daylight, so Kirabo decided to go and sit with Grandmother in the kitchen and wait for the dark.

  She paused at the door. Grandmother looked up, a lusansa straw pinched between her lips. A huge roll of the mat she was weaving sat coiled beside her feet. She moved up on the mat to make room for Kirabo. She added the lusansa to the edge of the mat and wove again, criss-crossing the straws above and beneath, sometimes skipping two or even three at a time, to make patterns. Kirabo remained at the door, held back by guilt that she was about to betray her grandmother.

  ‘Are you going to stand there all evening like an electricity pole?’

  Kirabo stepped inside. When she sat down, she leaned her back against Grandmother and closed her eyes. She listened to Grandmother’s heart. Her body expanded and fell, expanded and fell with each breath. I am not betraying you, Jjajja: I love you too much. Kirabo was sure Grandmother’s heart could feel hers.

  She opened her eyes. Ganda chickens were strutting in. Apart from the one with chicks, they made a fuss as they flew up to the rafters. The mother hen went to the nest in a corner where she hatched her chicks and made roosting noises. The chicks ran and collected around her legs. Slowly, they disappeared into her rump as she sat on them and closed her eyes. Something caught in Kirabo’s throat about Mother Hen’s kind of love.

  Grandmother nudged Kirabo to sit up and leaned forward to stoke the fire. When she sat back down, Kirabo did not lean against her again. She turned and looked at her. She stared for so long Grandmother asked, ‘Have I grown horns?’

  Kirabo wondered whether to tell Grandmother that age spots had appeared under her eyes. God must have sprinkled them while Grandmother slept, because they were not there the other day. On her chin were two hairs, thick and curled. Kirabo reached to touch them. Grandmother looked up sharply. Kirabo’s hand fell. ‘There is a hair on your chin.’

  ‘It means I am going to be rich someday.’

  ‘Giibwa said a hair is coming on my chin too.’ Kirabo rubbed her chin.

  Grandmother lips twitched. ‘Let me see.’ She tilted Kirabo’s chin. ‘You are going to be very rich: my wealth and yours combined.’

  ‘Why do you smile small, Jjajja?’

  Grandmother picked up another straw, tore it with her teeth and sighed. ‘You are growing up, not down.’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Now don’t go hurrying to grow up to find out.’

  Kirabo laughed.

  ‘Mosquitoes have started. Go and check in the water barrels. If there is water, take a bath and stay in the house with your grandfat
her.’

  Kirabo jumped up. Darkness was complete. She ran to the barrels but did not check them. Instead, she ran around the kitchen to the back path that went to Batte’s house. There was no chance of meeting anyone that way. Batte, the village drunk, lived alone. He had already gone to Modani Baara, the local bar, to drink. She reached the rear of Batte’s kitchen and crossed his front yard. The house was in total darkness. When she got to the main road, she heard the teenagers returning from the well. She stepped behind a shrub. Nothing to worry about; there would be an hour of taking baths before they noticed her absence.

  When the teenagers turned into the walkway, Kirabo jumped from behind the shrub and sprinted down the road, past the Coffee Growers’ Co-operative Store, known as koparativu stowa by everyone in the village. It was so dark that bushes, shrubs, coffee shambas and matooke plantations were one solid mass of blackness, a shield rather than a threat. Kirabo couldn’t even see her hands. When she got to Nsuuta’s, she ran across her courtyard, but stopped before she got to the door and tiptoed the rest of the way.

  Nsuuta had not closed her front door, but a lantern was lit. An invitation to mosquitoes, Kirabo tsked. But then again, Nsuuta could be one of those witches even a mosquito would not dare bite. She peered through the door: Nsuuta was nowhere to be seen.

  The witch’s diiro was small. The lantern sat on top of a packed bookshelf with glass shutters. On the wall a huge portrait of Kabaka Muteesa II – this time in royal garb, sitting on his throne – took up most of the space. On the other wall was a calendar: December 1968. On it was the familiar image of Sir Apollo Kaggwa with Ham Mukasa that every household had on its walls, as if attempting to turn back time and wish Idi Amin away. In a basket placed next to the lantern was a heap of spectacles, some plastic, some metallic.

  ‘Koodi?’ Kirabo called.

  ‘Karibu; we are in. Who is there?’ The voice came from the inner rooms.