THE WITCH
1
Nattetta, Bugerere, Uganda
May 1975
Until that night, Kirabo had not cared about her. She was curious on occasion (Where is she? What does she look like? How does it feel to have a mother?, that sort of thing), but whenever she asked about her and family said, “No one knows about her,” in that never-mind way of large families, she dropped it. After all, she was with family and she was loved. But then recently her second self, the one who did mad things, had started to fly out of her body, and she had linked the two.
On this occasion, when she asked about her mother and family fobbed her off again with “Don’t think about her; think about your grandparents and your father,” something tore. It must have been the new suspicion (Maybe she does not want me because I am …) that cut like razors.
•
A mosquito came zwinging. It must have gorged itself on someone because its song was slow and deep, unlike the skinny, high-pitched hungry ones that flew as if crazed. Kirabo’s eyes found it and followed it, followed it and, rising to her knees, she clapped it so hard her palms burned. She brought her hands to the candle to check her prize. Black blood: yesterday’s. There is no satisfaction like clapping a bloated mosquito out of existence mid-air. She wiped mosquito mash on a stray piece of paper and sat back and waited again.
Kirabo wanted storytelling, but the teenagers were engrossed in gossip. They lounged on three bunk beds in the girls’ bedroom. Some lay, some sat, legs dangling, others cross-legged, squeezed cosily, two or three to a bed. They had gathered as usual, after supper, to chatter before going off to sleep. Kirabo was not welcome.
For a while she had watched them, waiting to catch a pause, a breath, a tick of silence in their babble, to wedge in her call to storytelling—nothing. Finally, she gritted her teeth and called, “Once, a day came …” but her voice carried too far above the teenagers’ heads and rang impatient in the rafters.
The hush that fell could have brought down trees. Teenagers’ heads turned, eyes glaring (But who does this child think she is?), some seething (What makes you think we want to hear your stories?). None answered her call.
Another twelve-year-old would have been intimidated—there were ten teenagers in the room—but not Kirabo. Not visibly, anyway. She stared straight ahead, lips pouting. She was the kabejja of her grandparents, which meant that all the love in the house belonged to her, and whether they liked it or not, the teenagers, her aunts and uncles, would sit quietly and suffer her story. But Kirabo’s eyes—the first thing you saw on her skinny frame, with eyelids darker than shadows and lashes as long as brush bristles—betrayed her. They blinked rapidly, a sign that she was not immune to the angry silence.
Unfortunately, tradition was that she could not start her story until the audience granted her permission, but she had begun by annoying them.
•
On the floor in front of Kirabo was a kerosene candle. The tadooba only partially lit the room, throwing her shadow, elongated like a mural and twitchy like a spectre, against the wall. She looked down at the candle’s flame. A slender column of smoke rose off it and streamed up to the beams. A savage thought occurred to her: she could blow the flame out and turn the room blind-dark. And to annoy the teenagers properly, she would scamper off to Grandfather’s bedroom with the matchbox. Instead, Kirabo cradled the fragile flame between her palms to protect it from her breath. Her evil self, the one who quickened her breath and brought vengeful thoughts, retreated.
Still no response to her call. The teenagers’ rejection of her story gripped the room like a sly fart. Why were there so many of them in her home, anyway? They came uninvited, usually at the beginning of the year, and crowded the place as if it was a hostel. The sheer number of them made her feel like a calf in a herd.
Kirabo blinked the spite away. Most of the teenagers were Grandmother’s relatives. They came because her grandfather was good at keeping children in school. Also, Great-Grand Luutu had built the schools and churches, and Grandfather was on the board of governors for all schools—Catholic and Protestant, primary and secondary—in the area. When he asked for a place in any of the schools, he got it. His house was so close by they did not have to walk a long way to school. Grandfather’s mantra was “A girl uneducated is an oppressed wife in the making.” Grandmother was renowned for keeping girls safe from pregnancy. All the girls that passed through her hands finished their studies. Still, Kirabo wanted to tell the teenagers to go back where they came from if they didn’t want to hear her stories, but some were her father’s siblings. Unfortunately, she didn’t know who was who, since everyone seemed to come and go during school breaks, and they all called Grandmother “Maama” and Grandfather “Taata.” To ask By the way, who are my grandparents’ real children? would earn her a smacking.
“Kin, you were our eyes.” Grandfather’s voice leapt over the wall from the room next door, granting her permission to tell her story.
Kirabo perked up, her face a beam of triumph. She glanced sideways at the teenagers; their eyes were slaughter. She bit back a smirk. She had worked hard at this story. Told it to Giibwa—her best friend when they were not fighting—and Giibwa was awed. Grandmother, not disposed to wasting words on empty compliments, had said, “Your skill is growing.” The day before, when Kirabo took the goats to graze, she stood on top of an anthill and told it to the plain. The story came out so perfectly the goats stood in awe.
*
“Once, a day came when a man—his name was Luzze—married his woman—”
“Would he marry your woman instead?” a boy sneered under his breath. Kirabo ignored him.
“They had many children, but they were all girls—”
A girl snorted as if Kirabo’s story was already predictable.
“Luzze became sad, as every time the woman had another girl. At first, he thought it was bad luck that girl babies kept coming. But then the woman made it a habit; every time, girl-girl, girl-girl, eh. One day, Luzze called her: ‘I have been patient,’ he said, puffing on his pipe, ‘but I have decided to bring someone else to help you.’”
Kirabo took a breath to gauge her audience’s attention; the teenagers were silent, but their ire was still stiff in the air.
“That year, Luzze married another woman. Through time they had many children, but they were all girls. Luzze despaired. Why were girl-bearing women not labelled, so he could avoid them? Still, he married a third woman. She bore him many children, but they too were girls. One day, Luzze called his three wives into the house and gave them an ultimatum. ‘From today onwards, if you, or you or you’—he jabbed a finger at each woman—‘bear me another girl, don’t bring her home.’
“That year, the women worked harder. They fell pregnant. The first one to deliver had a daughter. One look at the baby and she was packing. The second delivered. It was a girl. She too left. When the third delivered, it was a boy. She lifted her breasts to the sky. But wait; there was something left in her stomach. She pushed, and out came a girl. The woman despaired. She looked first at her son and then at the daughter, at the son again and then the daughter. She made up her mind.