Moses Isegawa: Abyssinian Chronicles

If the convert had any plans of taking on three more wives, in the near future or thereafter, it was the least of his worries. His biggest concern was the ulcerated circumcision wound which made his penis very painful and very hard to handle. Banal functions like urination had become a living hell, an ordeal to psych himself up for. Long and pendulous, the penis rubbed against the cloth of his skirt or sometimes of his wrapper; thread bit into the wound, and hairs somehow got embedded in the crust. Consequently, sitting, sleeping and standing became endless torture sessions. Sometimes a scab formed round the edges of the ulcer, covering the terrible pink and angry red, giving him surges of hope, and then, devil of devils, he would get a nocturnal erection and the scab would burst. Painful urination would begin all over again, thread would bite into the wound and caustic medicine would bring tears to his eyes. He shaved every other day, and the itching of incipient pubic hair added to the ulcer made his hours trickle with murderous sloth. He had himself tested for blood poisoning and various blood cancers, but the doctors returned negative results each time. He was as healthy as a bull. The doctors ascribed his ulcer to age, although he was only in his forties.

On top of all that came the flies. Tiida went out one morning and let out the scream of her life. The two avocado trees behind the house were full of flies, large green things the size of coffee beans. She dropped the basinful of soaked clothes in her hands on the ground. Ssali came to the door and his skin crawled as if it were being peeled off. It was as if a goat or a pig were rotting at the foot of the trees. The connotation of putrescence made Tiida vomit onto the clothes. Ssali, who had been about to make her go find out what was happening, decided to do it himself. With legs spread wide apart, he hobbled to the foot of the trees. There he found a large heap of chicken entrails.

Normally, the flies would have clustered on the entrails, and maybe on the lower reaches of the trees, but now they were high up in the leaves. With a sick feeling in his stomach, Ssali returned to his bedroom and sent for a laborer. The man dug a pit and buried the entrails. The flies lingered on for a day and disappeared with the dusk.

Four days later Tiida saw the flies again. This time a heap of dog entrails was buried, and the flies went away. A week later another heap of dog entrails was buried. This was very worrying to Ssali: somebody was sacrificing dogs to bring disaster on his house at such a difficult moment in his life. Goat and sheep were understandable sacrifices, but dogs! With blood-caked dog heads left on the heap of entrails to make sure that he knew which animals were being killed! This was a warning, a naked act of terrorism. And it could only be coming from one person: the mother of the man who had sold him the land on which he had built his house.

He had bought the land five years before with the intention of raising cattle. At the time he did not know of the disputes inside the land-seller’s family. The purchase had been aboveboard, with no bribery or any form of corruption involved. It was only after the purchase had been ratified that the troubles surfaced. The mother of the seller appeared, with claims that her son had stolen the title deed and changed his father’s will to suit his greedy ends. The claims did not stand in court, and the woman had threatened to fight to her death to regain the land. That she had chosen this particular moment to strike back irked the convalescent very much. Did she think that he was too enervated to fight back? That he would just surrender or lie down and die? He sent her a delegation asking for peace, but she dismissed it out of hand, offended that he could even think her capable of sacrificing dogs to the gods of terrorism.

Ssali employed a guard to look out for whoever brought the heads and the entrails, but in vain. The terrorist struck with impunity. Some said it was a curse, a punishment meted out by a dead relative to avenge Ssali’s defection to Allah. The convert was at his wits’ end. He tried running away for weeks. But the heads kept coming, and the ulcer kept crusting and bursting. The mere presence of flies and their insinuation of filth made his medical mind sick. Putrescence! When he had devoted his entire life to its eradication!

As if that was not enough, some tongues put religious significance on the curse of the dog heads and the flies. They said that the heads and the entrails and the flies had started coming seven, others said six, days after his rebirth as Saif Amir Ssali. Seven was a cursed number among many peoples. Three sixes was the number of the Antichrist. Now he had become something between a walking curse and a demon, and he deserved the terrorism! As a former Christian he could not entirely scoff at these nebulae, but to make sure he was safe, he invited some sheikhs and two famous imams to offer prayers and sacrifice. Two days afterward, a new head and a heap of entrails appeared. This was a concerted effort to drive him out of his house and off the land.

At the same time a new fear struck him: the possibility of Tiida’s leaving him. He agonized about asking her what she thought about the situation. He could, however, not broach the subject directly for fear of annoying her by appearing to doubt her. What if it was all in his mind and she had never contemplated quitting? How long would she put up with this? A woman who bathed four times a day staying in a house besieged by entrails and dogs’ heads? It seemed unthinkable.

It was well known that older converts were more susceptible to penile cancer, everyone told him, as if it helped. He wondered how long would this go on. His children were now being severely teased by schoolmates using words like “fly-man,” “sick penis” and “skirt-daddy.”

I was impressed by the siege of flies. It must have made Ssali feel like he had shit on him all day. What a turnaround! He had visited us twice looking like a real doctor. On both occasions he consented to take tea, but I had to wash the cups three times in very warm water and a mountain of soap suds which climbed up to my elbows. He sat there watching me and Grandma, saying nothing, bored by everything and everyone. He was wearing gray trousers, a white shirt, a blue tie and very black, very shiny shoes. He had a gold watch which cut the air like a yellow blade when he raised his hand to feel his neatly parted hair. Tiida was beside herself with pride. She was all over the place directing things, looking at him now and then as if seeking tacit approval or covert gratitude. I must have dried the tray six times, the spoons four times. There was always a little speck or a minute drop of wet left. In a bid to mend fences, she said, “Dr. Ssali has got such a delicate stomach!” I figured she was now saying, “He has got such a delicate penis! It should never have got cut in the first place.”

Fourteen months after his circumcision, the skies cleared and the ulcer healed. But that was not the end of his troubles. The prize he had been anxiously awaiting, and indeed one of the things which had kept his sanity intact, was denied him. The representative of the Conversion Committee informed him that he was no longer eligible for a brand-new Peugeot because he had not fulfilled all the stipulations of the contract. His fellow converts, he was told, had spent the past year campaigning all over the country, addressing people in mosques and schools, at public grounds and community centers, fighting for the spread of Islam. He, on the other hand, had missed all that, spending his time in hospital wards getting treatment. The Committee was going to pay his medical bills and offer him a consolation prize: a 125cc scooter.

“You gave your word, sheikh,” he pleaded.