5
She almost danced when she arrived at Nsuuta’s house and the front door was open. It had been two days since the first consultation, and between family and chores she had not found a single gap in which to slip away. But yesterday old Teefe had died; all the grown-ups were at her funeral. Nonetheless, Kirabo looked cautiously up and down the road, then peered into the gardens close by before sprinting across the front yard. She had also carried a satchel with her playthings, as if she was on her way to Giibwa’s to play. As she got to the front door, Nsuuta appeared from the inner room, dishevelled.
“Eh, I woke you up? Forgive me. I saw the door open and thought What luck—Nsuuta is at home.”
“Yes, I was—”
“Did you not go to Teefe’s funeral?” Kirabo stepped into the diiro.
Nsuuta grabbed the doorframe on both sides as if Kirabo was pushing to go into her inner rooms.
“I returned in the morning to doze a bit. I must have overslept. What is the time?”
“Towards six hours of day. The sun is almost in the middle of the sky …” Kirabo’s nose caught something in the air; she sniffed, and a puzzled look came over her face.
“What is it? Does my house smell?”
“Is my grandfather here?”
“Who, Miiro? What would Miiro be doing here?”
“I smell him.”
“Smell him, child, how can you smell a person?”
“I know my grandfather: he has been here.”
Nsuuta’s eyes moved left and right, left and right, without focus. “I’ve been sleeping all morning: Miiro has not been here.”
“Then he is coming.”
“Really?”
“I told you, I am a wit—”
“You have to go, Kirabo.” Nsuuta crossed the diiro, grabbed Kirabo’s arm, and led her out of the house and across the courtyard. When they got to the road, Nsuuta let go of her hand and whispered, “Tell me, how does your grandfather smell?”
“Like love. Love smells like flowers.”
Nsuuta threw back her head and laughed.
“But Grandmother smells like vegetables—aubergine, garden eggs, jobyo spinach.”
Nsuuta stopped laughing. A shadow floated across her blue eyes.
“I know my Grandfather; he—”
“You know nothing.”
Kirabo was startled.
“How can you know anyone when you don’t even know yourself?”
Kirabo wanted to protest—I know myself—but she was smarting from Nsuuta’s rebuke. Then Nsuuta touched her shoulder as if she had snapped at the wrong person.
“What I meant, child, is that we are our circumstances. And until we have experienced all the circumstances the world can throw at us, seen all the versions we can be, we cannot claim to know ourselves. How, then, do we start to know someone else?”
Kirabo was perplexed. All she had said was that she knew her grandfather. Why all this grown-up talk?
“I have to return to Teefe’s funeral,” Nsuuta said. “Come back soon; I have got news for you.”
“You have? Did you see my flight the other night?”
Nsuuta nodded.
“I swung on the church steeple again.”
“And I saw your mother.”
Kirabo gasped. “You too saw the light grow at her house?”
“Hmm, now go.” Nsuuta turned away.
As she watched Nsuuta walk away, Kirabo covered her mouth as if it was too much happiness and she needed to hold it back. Then she ran up the road, the satchel of playthings bobbing on her back. Finally, she was going to see her, she would know what it felt like to have a mother. Then she made promises to herself: I will never take her for granted, no rolling my eyes the way Giibwa does at her mother. She skipped up the road. I will be cured of flying.
•
There was still time to go and play with Giibwa before the grown-ups came back from Teefe’s burial. Kirabo crossed the road and took the trail to Kisoga, Giibwa’s village. The path was overgrown on both sides with bamboo thickets. Kirabo skipped along. The day was perfect—no chores, and because of Teefe’s timely death, no grown-up in sight. Everywhere was a lightness in the air, one that came only when grown-ups were away. All that loving, that making sure you are okay and behaving, got heavy sometimes. Everywhere children played tappo, nobbo, gogolo, seven stones. The only sad thing was that Kirabo had made a promise to Nsuuta to keep quiet about her mother, which meant she couldn’t share the good news with Giibwa.
She came to the Nnankya, a stream which formed the border between Nattetta and Kisoga. Because Nnankya, the spirit who owned the stream, was a clanswoman, Kirabo walked to the bank to say hello. The stream was silent, as if still. Yet tiny fish wriggled against the flow. They were so transparent she could see their spines. Kirabo shut out the rest of the world to hear the Nnankya flow. Water made irate noises where stones or plants stood in its way; it sucked its teeth when there was a dip in the gradient. Something hidden under the silt blew bubbles to the surface, tadpoles probably. For a while Kirabo listened to the stream. Then she jumped in and made a splash. Fish vanished, water muddied. Her feet sang at the cooling effect. After a while she stepped out on to the stones and skipped from one to another until she reached the other side. She said “See you” to Nnankya and carried on.
A stench of cow dung and urine whipped her face, and Miiro’s kraal came into view. It was empty; the herdsman had taken the cows to graze. She walked past the kraal, past the herdsman’s house, past four other dwellings until she came to Giibwa’s home. Only the labourers who worked in Miiro’s coffee, cotton, and matooke shambas lived here in Kisoga. Their wives grew food on the land Grandfather allocated to them while the husbands laboured. At the end of the month the men came to the house and Miiro counted out their money, which they signed for in a book.
Giibwa’s mother was using her bare hands to level cow dung for mulching and manure. Kirabo knelt and greeted her. She replied in Lusoga, even though Giibwa and her father were Ganda. Apparently, Giibwa’s mother had said, “Why speak Luganda, which is lame Lusoga?” The audacity. All the grown-ups said it. Because of this, residents called her Gyamera Gyene behind her back. Some bullies called Giibwa the same to her face. But the phrase did not make sense to Kirabo. Gyamera gyene is of trees; it means they grow by themselves rather than being planted.
Kirabo asked if she and Giibwa could go out to play.
Giibwa and Kirabo could not have been more different. Giibwa was cherubic, whereas Kirabo was trouble. Giibwa was shorter, a little chubby, where Kirabo was a reed. Giibwa smiled like a sunflower, Kirabo frowned and blinked. Giibwa was meek, while Kirabo was in charge, all-knowing, her views thrust on friends. Giibwa was so light-skinned, people called her Brown—“You mean Bulawuni?”—and marvelled how God gave Mwesigwa, Giibwa’s father, a beautiful daughter, and a pang of jealousy would stab Kirabo. But it would not last, because she was Miiro’s kabejja and Giibwa was the daughter of his labourer.
“Some food, Kirabo?” Giibwa asked.
Kirabo shook her head: no way was she eating anything there, not after seeing Giibwa’s mother roll dung with her bare hands. Giibwa served some beans and a few planks of cassava. Watching her eat, hunger started to scrape Kirabo’s stomach. But it was too late now. She could not change her mind. She watched Giibwa wipe away thick gravy with the plank until the plate was clean. Before they set off, Giibwa dropped two clusters of ndiizi bananas into Kirabo’s satchel.