Moses Isegawa - Abyssinian Chronicles

Realizing how fragile the ice she was skating on had become, Padlock tailored her despotic immunities and said, rather plaintively, “Why can’t you believe me?”

“I can walk away, you know that. You are not the only woman in the world.” He stopped there, unwilling to reveal the juicy bounty of his escapade. Padlock’s aunt had given him the blissful attentions of an experienced mistress in her fastidiously scrubbed little house. The relief of not having to explain himself, because she had always known that he would turn to her! Serenity could almost hear himself thanking Nakibuka’s former husband for beating her, thereby opening her eyes to gentler forms of love, his specialty.

Serenity and Nakibuka’s impromptu conversation had taken its own course, meandering and coming back on course to concentrate on them. It was untainted with hurried confessions or forced intimacies. The letter had nestled itself very late in the web like a casual thread, till it was drenched with the saliva of laughter, the pangs of anger and sadness severed by mutual understanding. Mythical mellifluous eyes and felicitous neck and volcanic love were transferred from half-red, halfblack print to the winsome character of the bridal aunt. By the time the volcanic crater of holy juices was explored, both parties were giddy with passion.

“Somebody wants to destroy me,” Padlock said, interrupting Serenity’s sweet lapse of concentration.

“Have you created that many bitter enemies? Or is it Mbaziira the Great’s girlfriend driving an old rival off her patch?”

“I don’t appreciate such crude language.”

“Well, what is so refined about an old woman pining for young blood?”

There came noise of a scuffle and long, sulky squeaks from overburdened bedsprings.

“What are you doing?” Serenity said with alarm. “Give me back that letter now. Don’t eat the evidence. Are you mad?”

Padlock was lucky that Serenity abhorred violence; otherwise she would have suffered a broken jaw. Serenity swallowed his anger and concentrated his thoughts on Nakibuka. His crucifixion on the joyless cross of a monogamous relationship was over; his thirst was not going to be mocked any longer by the sponge of his wife’s vinegary sex. Given a choice between fecundity and beauty, his wife had opted for the former, her aunt for the latter. Two children later, Nakibuka’s body was still taut, supple and undeformed. He now desired her more than ever. He dreamed about her and wanted to be with her. She was the best thing that had happened to him in a very long time.

As mosquitoes terrorized my silent vigil, making me think of retiring, Padlock’s voice pierced the night: “Where did you spend the last three days?”

Silence.

“Tell me where you spent the past days.”

Silence.

“I want to know where you were.”

The passionate whinings of mating dogs drooling with the lust of a nocturnal orgy drew nearer. The rustling of dogs’ feet, accompanied by sharp panting and heavy sighing, passed two houses away. Somewhere in the darkness were about twenty dogs at the mercy of their hormones, watching or mating or drooling. These were dangerous dogs. A few days ago, an orgy of frustrated canine lust had resulted in the mauling of a drunken man, too heavy-legged to flee, who had run into the pack. I didn’t wait for more warning. I entered the house. As I tried to sleep, many long minutes later, shots rang out. The orgy whined dementedly, almost climactically, and then fell silent.

Padlock, I had to admit, was possessed of an intuitive intelligence, but she lacked style. A few days later, she called me to her Command Post and, without looking at me, asked if I happened to know somebody with a typewriter. Apparently, a friend of hers wanted some important documents typed out for her. Expressing fake surprise at being involved in such high-caliber matters, I replied that I knew nobody rich enough to own a typewriter. I hinted that Serenity had access to a typist and a typewriter too. Defeated, she was grabbing at straws to thatch her embarrassment when a customer called. I vamoosed.

Days later, I noticed that somebody had developed the sneaky habit of going through my geometry set and exercise books, and my clothes too. At the same time, I noticed that Loverboy had not appeared in the compound for some time now.

A fortnight later, I discovered that the searches had been extended to my bedding: the mattress was out of place, and had been left like that on a number of occasions. I developed the little habit of pasting old glue and chewing gum residue on my geometry set, on my bed and in the corners of my suitcase.

There are two pits despots naturally fall into: stereotyping and scape-goating. Padlock was no exception. She dropped hints that she knew who the criminal was, which was another way of saying that I was responsible.

Now, if there was something I was raised to despise, it was stealing, especially from parents and relatives, but Padlock did not know this, and she continued suspecting and holding me responsible. Of course, I had stolen Treasure Island, but not for money. The interesting thing was that more and more books went missing, and the more it occurred, the more my property was searched. Many shitters complained, constantly, that their pens, pencils and exercise books had gone missing. The truth was that some shitters lost these things at school, as did many other kids, but because of the stiff punishment that accompanied declarations of such careless losses of property, they took the shortcut and made use of the scapegoat.

Brought up on blood sacrifices, I decided to sacrifice myself in a bid to thank the gods who had saved my skin by keeping my name out of the Miss Singer scandal, at least as far as Serenity was concerned. At the back of my mind, I had the feeling that Serenity suspected me but had decided to ignore me because I had accorded him the opportunity to pursue the object of his desire. In sacrificing myself, I also wanted to thank Padlock’s gods for their role in my victory. At the bottom of all this, I wanted to reclaim my former constituency, the shitters, who still saw me as a cross between a criminal and an outcast of sorts. I wanted to become their hero and weaken Padlock’s hold on them.

Ergo, on two occasions I implicated myself in the improbable pilfering of two pens. Glad that the criminal had been revealed by the working of God’s grace, Padlock gave me twenty guava-switch strokes on each occasion. Every stroke was invested with all the past angers, past frustrations and past suspicions, and if I had not been toughened by my mission, I would have incurred serious damage, but on both occasions I acted tough as nails. I did not cry out; neither did I shed a tear. She swung at sensitive parts, and to divert my mind from the pain, I concentrated on my heroic role, and the tears remained safely in their ducts. I saw the eyes of the shitters widen with admiration, and my face turned cold as stone, veneered with a hero’s insouciant arrogance. I was their hero. It felt good. I was back on top. Convinced by now that I would not shed a tear even if she removed my eye, Padlock let me go. I swaggered like a cop after flooring a troublesome criminal. I swaggered like Amin after winning with a huge knockout in a boxing ring. Padlock could not stomach it. She called me back and cut me thrice with the switch on my right calf. It just made me swagger more. She finally gave up.

Furnished with a heroic criminal, the thief did a better job. I started enjoying the game and my part in it. Padlock’s wallet was raided a number of times. The thief’s sense of timing became spectacular. When Padlock left obvious baits, he humiliated her by ignoring them. He wanted to hunt his prey and work for his booty. He surely knew that only gods expected and accepted sacrifices. When Padlock hid under the bed in a bid to nab him, he never showed up. The house swelled with the pungent arrogance of a clever raider and the bad blood of his frustrated tracker. As if to provoke his tracker even more, the thief extended his finger to “tooth money,” sometimes called “rat money.”