“Everyone is fine.” Kirabo whispered to indicate that she had come on the stealth. She took a breath as she kicked off her slippers at the door. When she stepped inside, she felt Grandmother’s trust evaporate with a shiver.
“Something big must be chasing Miiro’s favourite.” Nsuuta sat down on a mat. “Come, tell me what it is. But first, how is your grandfather?”
“He is there. Very well.”
Now inside Nsuuta’s house, Kirabo didn’t know how to start.
“Come close, let me see how you have grown.”
Kirabo shuffled forward on her knees. Perhaps Nsuuta would sense her problems through touch. Nsuuta felt Kirabo’s hands, then her arms, measuring them at the joints. She touched Kirabo’s face with both hands, feeling her cheekbones, eyebrows, forehead, and chin.
“Hmm.” She seemed worried. “Your features are well arranged.” Nsuuta felt Kirabo’s neck. “Oh, your grandmother’s neck. Now we have a problem.”
“Ah?”
“You might turn out good-looking and dumb.”
“Ah?”
“You didn’t know? Once the world stares at beauty, the brain stops growing.”
“Why?”
“Beauty brings all the fine things in life, but a plain girl needs her wits about her.”
“But I am so dark-skinned, they call me Kagongolo.”
“That might help. By the time people realise a dark woman is beautiful she has walked past. But light-skinned women, mya”—she made a flash with her hands—“they dazzle and blind.”
Kirabo wanted to laugh; did Nsuuta have any idea how light-skinned she was?
“People say my legs are ‘embarrassed.’”
“Who cares about skinny legs? You are going to bury them in a busuuti.”
Kirabo had never thought of that.
“However, you might get too tall if you don’t stop growing now.” Nsuuta cupped Kirabo’s face in her hands. Unlike Grandmother’s coarse ones, Nsuuta’s hands were as soft as a baby’s. She does not do chores, Kirabo thought.
“How old are you?”
“Started walking my thirteenth this month.”
“Just made twelve? Wo! You are already too tall. Listen, if people ever say to you, Oh, Kirabo, you are good-looking, you are beautiful—ignore it. You have not earned it. Otherwise, beauty can get in your way.”
“Already they call me Longie, for longido or lusolobyo.”
Nsuuta laughed relief. “We Ganda cannot stand tall women.”
“I will never get married, anyway.”
“Good. I mean … why?”
“I am a witch.”
Nsuuta sat back and batted her eyelids. “A witch?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of witch?”
“A real one.”
“Oh.” Pause. “Have you talked to your grandmother?”
“How? She would not understand.”
“And I would?”
“You are the only witch I know.”
Nsuuta’s face shone as if it was a compliment.
“Everyone says that despite your blindness you can see. And you make men do things for you.”
“I do.” Nsuuta was shameless. “Tell me, how do you know you are a witch?”
“There are two of me.”
“Oh? That is serious. Where is the other one?”
“Right now? Inside me, both. But recently, the bad one keeps flying out. Are there two of you too? Does one of you fly out, does she make you do bad things?”
Nsuuta sighed. “Yes, there are two of me, but we are looking at you, not at me. When did you find out there are two of you?”
“They have always been there, but then the bad one has started to fly.”
“Hmm.” Nsuuta sighed. “Tell me, Kirabo. Of your two selves, who are you now, who is talking to me?”
Kirabo looked blank.
“I mean, when the bad self flies out, do you stay with the good self or do you fly with the evil one?”
Kirabo wanted to lie that she stayed with the good self, but Nsuuta already knew.
“It is a crisis, is it not, Kirabo,” Nsuuta asked, “when you realise you prefer your evil self?”
“I don’t. In truth I don’t. She takes me with her all the time.”
Nsuuta sighed. “Your two selves are different from mine.”
“How?”
“Yours seem special … I think you are a special girl, Kirabo.”
“But I want to stop the dreadful things.”
“What dreadful things?”
“Oh—”
“You can trust me, I am a witch too.”
“Ah … it is not good …”
“If you don’t tell me, how can I help you?”
“You know when people say, ‘Don’t do that, you are a girl?’” Kirabo picked at Nsuuta’s mat, not meeting her eyes.
“Yes?”
“I wait until no one is around and do it,” she said. “Just to see what happens,” she added quickly. “Like the other time—”
“What did you do the other time?”
“You know the jackfruit tree behind our kitchen?”
Nsuuta nodded.
“I pulled down my knickers and flashed my … erm to see whether it would die or stop bearing fruit.”
“Oh, Kirabo.” Nsuuta clapped shock.
“I fight with the boys—they don’t pass the ball to me and I throw them off my grandfather’s pitch. I hate chores, I hate kneeling, and I cannot stand babies. Sometimes I feel squeezed inside this body as if there is no space. That is when one of me flies out.”
“Kirabo.” Nsuuta held Kirabo’s shoulders with both her hands and looked into her eyes. “Maybe everyone, even your grandmother, feels squeezed sometimes.”
“Nooo.”
“Maybe occasionally she hates being a woman. Did you know she loved to run naked in the rain when we were young?”
“That grandmother of mine?” It was impossible to imagine Grandmother young, let alone running naked in the rain.
“It is our whisper; don’t ever tell anyone.”
Kirabo looked into Nsuuta’s glassy blue eyes. They looked back at her. Nothing in her manner suggested she was blind.
“As for your two selves, you will have to come back. I need to consult my powers.”
Something warned Kirabo against coming back. That is how addiction to witching starts—with multiple consultations. But what was the alternative? She had to stop the flights before they got out of hand.
“Okay, but I only want to stop flying, that is all. I don’t want to do anything horrible.”
“Don’t worry, I will take care of it. When you find time, come back and I will tell you what my powers saw. Now run home before you get in trouble. And remember, not a word to anyone about this.”
“I promise.”
As Kirabo stepped outside she remembered the other thing that had been troubling her.
“Nsuuta, can you find my mother for me?”
Nsuuta started. Kirabo did not wait for her to recover. She ran across the courtyard and back into the road. Behind her, Nsuuta smiled. A huge, fat smile. Twelve years ago, when Tom arrived with a six-month-old baby without a mother, Nsuuta had predicted this moment. What did her grandparents expect? That they could love the mother out of the child? Through the years Alikisa, Miiro’s wife, had turned Kirabo and the rest of the family against Nsuuta. Then her blindness had grown worse, making it impossible for her to lure Kirabo over to herself. Yet, out of nowhere, Alikisa’s spite had delivered the child right into her hands. With a bonus—the idea of flying out of her body. It was as if Kirabo was biologically Nsuuta’s own. This notion of flying would give her the perfect angle to start. Nsuuta clapped wonderment. Sometimes God loved her as if he would never kill her. She stood up and closed her door. She was ready.