“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’s 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 grandfather.”
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.
“Kirabo.”
“Eh?” Disbelief. “You mean Kirabo, Miiro’s morning sunshine?”
“Yes.” Kirabo had no qualms about that description.
“My grandmother, Naigaga,” Nsuuta swore. “Is everything all right?” She appeared from the inner room, frowning. She stood in the doorway, too tall and erect for an old woman and too dignified for a witch, as far as Kirabo was concerned. Nsuuta stared at Kirabo with glassy blue eyes. “Come, come in.”
Kirabo was transfixed. She had no idea old people could be beautiful. She had seen Nsuuta up close five years ago on Aunt YA’s wedding, but all she saw then was a witch. In her own home, Nsuuta had the light skin of a gourd. Unlike Grandmother, who plaited her hair in small tucked-in knots, Nsuuta cut hers short and brushed it backwards. And her house? Too tidy. She must have trapped a newly hatched ghost, on its way to the ancestors, to do her chores.