Moses Isegawa - Abyssinian Chronicles

Rumor reigned supreme here. If one needed the truth, one had only to follow the noses of the gossipers. One such character linked Lwendo to Sr. Bison, a fat little black nun with very round legs, very round arms and a very ample behind on which fantasizers said one could stand the fat Jerusalem Bible without its falling off. This same nun was linked to the Rev. Fr. Mindi, the disciplinary master. I was only interested in the former connection.

I started shadowing Lwendo in the evenings, in the hope of nabbing him while he was eating the forbidden fruit. If not, I wanted to catch him in some very compromising situation. I failed. What I knew was that whenever the food was bad, and it often was, he would go to the kitchen and eat leftovers from the fathers’ table after supper. During the cooking weeks of nuns with whom he did not particularly get along, his visits to the kitchen were less frequent. I had two options: either to link him with stealing pork and roasting it in his barn, which meant enlisting the cooperation of an interested priest, or to catch him fucking Sr. Bison or some other nun.

It took me eight weeks to nail him. I shadowed him every evening during the night study, which began at 9 p.m. One evening he was not in class or in his barn or in the library. He could only be in some father’s office or in the kitchen. I went to the kitchen at 9:30 and found it vacant, the sooty boilers staring dolorously through the grimy windows. I stood outside the kitchen and thought hard. The food store, a long, cold room full of sacks of maize, maize flour and bad beans, was to my right. Normally, its heavy wooden door bore the weight of two large fist-shaped padlocks. I looked. The door was closed but not padlocked. I decided to chance it and go in. This room was out of bounds, except for those with special permission. I did not wait for permission. I was the librarian, after all. I could always say that I was looking for Fr. Kaanders, or that he had sent me to the bursar to see if some books had arrived.

A thick, weevil-impregnated smell befouled the still air, making the long, cold room feel smaller and more forlorn. The pregnant gunnysacks on their stumpy wooden stands reminded me of Grandpa’s sacks of coffee, stuffed and ready for the mill at the top of Mpande Hill. The sacks, like the beds in Sing-Sing, were lined against the wall, creating a wide cement corridor in the middle which looked like a long, dark tunnel into a big hill. I stood and listened, fighting the sudden need to sneeze, afraid to be found here alone in the darkness. It was very quiet. A dead stick fell from the trees near the convent onto the corrugated-iron roof with a long, thin scratching sound. I started as though jabbed in the ribs.

I thought I heard other sounds, this time coming from the back of the tunnel. They were more like squeaking rats. Maybe there were other prowlers in here. I thought I heard a dog sniffing repeatedly. The sound was sharply controlled and entered the body like needles or tongues of fire. Lusanani suddenly came to me, her bosom drenched by a leaking jerry can, her nipples erect under her cotton blouse. She suddenly filled the darkness, although this was certainly not her song. Hers was a more sophisticated rendition, garnished with a staccato chorus and blessed with flowery, praise-laden stanzas. This sound was genuine, clean, urgent and maddening. On tiptoe, the burden in my trousers a sweet hindrance I vaguely thought was donging like a church bell, I advanced toward the sniffer dog.

Lwendo stuffed the nun with powerful, deliberate, loaded thrusts. A cheeky ray of light from a choked ventilator fell dully on red panties heaped around a work-conditioned ankle. Lust-glazed nunly eyes saw me first, and the gasp that burst in the darkness tore through my groin with the corrosion of sulfuric acid. Lwendo, well aware that the damage had already been done, would not be denied. He pressed to the juddering end with the preening insolence of a stud in a corral. Realizing that it was not a priest but me, his lackey, he laughed, and in his eagerness he tried to shake my hand.

I had bought my freedom and his friendship, on top of helpings set aside from the fathers’ table during the grateful nun’s cooking week. In my excitement I thought of Uncle Kawayida, the magician, the charmer, the storyteller, and of his story of the man with the three sisters. I would have liked to tell him about this coup, and about seminary life in general, but communication between us had faded badly since I left the village. Did he read books? No, he was too busy running his business, raising turkeys and broiler chickens. Had he forgotten about the old days? I didn’t think so.

I was a free man now. I toyed with the idea of going after a bully or two, but the bullying had cooled down. I decided to go after people larger than me, the real bosses of the place. I still found no pleasure in beating people of my level. I relished the challenge of reaching above myself and winning, albeit with more bruises. My attention had already been drawn by Fr. Mindi, the disciplinary master, and now probably solo fucker of efficient Sr. Bison. This man not only caned boys, but also went after them, hiding in bushes and behind buildings, high walls and fences, everywhere, to catch those breaking stupid rules like talking during silence time or eating between meals. He knew all the paths used by truants, and often hid behind the acacias overlooking Sing-Sing in the hope of catching hungry boys who escaped and returned to the seminary with bananas, corn, pancakes, sugarcanes, anything to keep hunger at bay. Some truants had a business instinct: they took orders and delivered foodstuffs at a profit. Fr. Mindi went after these “traders in the temple” with missionary zeal. He called them to their dormitories at odd hours in the hope of finding contraband or money in their boxes.

Officially, all pocket money was kept with him, but many boys hid most of it in places where they could get at it freely, without first going to Fr. Mindi and explaining why they needed it. Sing-Sing suffered most of Mindi’s money-hunting “police checks,” as they were called.

Die-hard truants and money hoarders fought back. They spread rumors and set him on the trail of the wrong people. With Mindi thus diverted, they made good their escape. He fell into this trap a number of times, till he discovered that boys were laughing at his gullibility. He caught some of the pranksters and punished them harshly. Information about police checks somehow leaked from the fathers’ dining room, and many of his raids were pre-empted, with the result that on days when he planned to surprise the real criminals, he found their lockers and suitcases empty.

The role of disciplinary master hinged on his self-image, and on the perceived image the boys had of him. As far as Fr. Mindi was concerned, both were poor. This only served to make him harsher.

I often wondered why this educated man couldn’t see the ludicrousness of his position. Boys fed on bad posho (corn bread) and weevilled beans stayed hungry and had to supplement their deficient diet. Wouldn’t he have done the same? Couldn’t he see that he was enforcing impossible rules? Couldn’t he see that he was the Pharisee who preached total rest on the Sabbath, yet rescued his donkey when it fell in the ditch on that day? It was easy to say that no one should eat between meals when your stomach was full of pork, fish, Irish potatoes, greens and the other goodies priests ate.

I also hated the lack of self-control this preacher of self-control exhibited when he caught his man. If he was indeed enforcing impersonal rules, made in Rome and imported by the bishop into the country, he had to exhibit some impersonality and impartiality. On the contrary, he enjoyed his successes, especially when inflicting pain on miscreants. It was personal after all. He was demonstrating that although some got away with it, anyone caught would pay a high price. Pride, ambition, future career prospects and power were in it for him.