Moses Isegawa - Abyssinian Chronicles

It suddenly struck me: Where was Grandpa? Was he lying wounded in a pit, a building, a bush, waiting for someone to hear his cries for help? So far, his sons had failed to locate him, or even to meet anyone who had a clue as to his whereabouts. They had been to morgues, hospital wards, makeshift refugee centers, military barracks and the homes of relatives, all in vain. They had hardly rested in the past week, and seemed totally at a loss as to what to do next. Aunt Lwandeka had asked her National Reform Movement colleagues to look for Grandpa, but they had not returned any news.

With the sharp stink of burning rubber in my nostrils, mad curiosity in my head, rifle shots and joyous shouts in my ear, I pushed my way through the crowd. I went past charred remains and mutilated effigies and headed for the cathedrals. I was going to check at the Catholic Cathedral of Lubaga and, if necessary, at the Protestant Cathedral of Namirembe. It was hot and humid, and the heat stuck to the skin like a layer of ointment.

Near the edge of the bowl, another court was in session. Tribal facial scars were on trial: diamond-shaped scars, vertical slashes, horizontal scars and swollen dotted scars on foreheads, temples and cheeks had betrayed their northern owners. Anyone seen with the same was a potential suspect. Three women with vertical slashes on their cheeks were in the dock, tried by a group of ragged boys young enough to be their adolescent sons. The crowd was savoring this delegation of judicial powers to these dregs of society with the demeanor of a boss watching his minions exact revenge.

The boys, heads lice-tormented, groins crab-infested, brains glue-crazed, eyes aglow with that rare total power occasioned only by war, chanted, “Witches, witches.”

“Witches … burn them, witches … fry them, witches … fuck them …”

The accused, red eyes popping, nostrils dilating and faces warping with deathly vacillation — that terrible indecision between humility and disdain, supplication and condescension, frowning and fawning — mumbled and jabbered, appealing to emotions hardened by the last three thousand and ten days of wrath.

The ragged kids, as if commanded by an infallible leader, closed in on the trio. They ripped soaked fabrics, razored open cesarean scars, invaded stretch-marked territories, laid waste anything in their path. The flashing of metal and the snapping of bone rose above the animal grunts as life struggled with death. I did not wait for the final outcome.

The Catholic cathedral, perched high on the hill like a new Golgotha piled with skulls and bones, was strewn with people without destination, people awaiting overdue redemption like forgotten goods. Many had come from as far away as fifty kilometers, fleeing advancing Tanzanian forces and discomfited Amin troops. To these people the archbishop was a hero, and the sins of the clergy were merely the inevitable fleas on a useful dog. These survivors had neither the maniacal look of the Crusaders nor the defiant visage of the martyrs: they were scared, unsure, hesitant. It was as if they believed that war had only taken a break and would return as soon as they left for home. I went all over the compound in search of Grandpa and checked the list in the administration office. In vain. I left the cathedral, with its phallic towers, the cook fires, the bawling children and lost adults, and headed for the Protestant cathedral. It was a wild-goose chase. I could hardly focus on anything now. I seemed to be as dazed as the skeletal people I had seen at the bowl, and as hypnotized as a drugged mouse. As I was leaving I stepped on somebody’s clothes, spread out in the grass to dry, and heard angry voices calling me to stop. I just strode on.

The headquarters of the Muslim Supreme Council, the place I associated with Dr. Ssali’s conversion, was crawling with Muslim refugees. Anybody who feared reprisals stayed here, under the mighty shield of the great edifice. I thought I saw Lusanani among the unveiled women. I followed a woman and whistled at her, sure that it was Lusanani. A strange woman turned round, startled. I apologized. I should have known that Hajj Gimbi, expert reader of the times, had moved his family to the rural area where few people knew him and were unlikely to cause him trouble. I saw quite a few anxious faces here. There was genuine fear of a backlash against Muslims among these people. They had seen what had happened to some of their colleagues who had been accused of harboring Aminist sympathies. But their leaders exuded the confidence that nobody would dare assault them here at the giant mosque. As I left I felt a big sense of failure: I had not located Grandpa.

Evening was approaching. The sun had gone down quickly on the day’s mayhem, and order had crept back.

The city looked empty, as most people had hurried home to beat roadblocks, the curfew and henchmen searching for victims under the cover of darkness. Everyone knew that the first weeks after the war were more dangerous than the last weeks of the war itself, and acted accordingly.

I was exhausted, crazed by the day’s failures. I wished it were all a dream and I could blow life back into the corpses and make Grandpa hear my voice. As in Grandma’s case, reality had its own harsh, unbendable plans that did not respond to the urging of even the most powerful minds. I was so famished I thought I was feeling the hunger of the dead and of those far away whose crops had been destroyed in the war. I knew that I could not bear all the sufferings of the last three thousand and ten days of Amin’s rule. I was even reluctant to take stock of the damage: Grandma dead, Grandpa disappeared, Aunt Lwandeka threatened and tortured, Aunt Kasawo gang-raped … and I was afraid it was not over yet.

I found myself walking along the corsetted banks of Nakivubo River, the hunger and thirst I felt turning the filthy water into a crystal-clear waterfall. I kept on walking toward Owino Market, remembering my fantasy of seeing Padlock working there. I saw vultures and marabou storks lazing on the garbage dumps, sated, ready to leave after another successful day at the office. The market was built in two sections, one with cement stalls, one with makeshift ones where commerce spilled onto the pavements. It was like walking through a sooty ghost town. There was a side road that came down from the cathedrals and cut right across the slums and the market. I walked toward it. People hurried past me like ghosts, unnoticed. Then I saw a woman turn and hold her nose, but she did not spit. I knew there was a corpse nearby, because one never spat at a dead person.

I had in fact bypassed four bodies lying in the shadow of the market office building. The power of the stench made me feel as if the roof of my nose had been ripped off. Two corpses were lying faceup; one was facedown; the fourth was headless. I was the only onlooker; others just hurried by. The woman who had held her nose had disappeared. I did not recognize any of the dead. I was about to walk back to the taxi park before it was too late, when I was struck by the familiar look of one dead man’s bloodied brogue. I had brushed that shoe many times and wiped the polish off with a piece of white cloth. I knew where the cracks were and how carefully they had been repaired. I bent down to look more closely, the stench almost knocking me back. The man lying facedown was Grandpa! My bladder voided itself, releasing a few drops. Suddenly I was no longer hungry or thirsty. I was just dazed and groggy. Why had Serenity and Kawayida not looked here? Had they looked and failed to recognize their own father?

I somehow made the journey home. Aunt Lwandeka went to her NRM colleagues, got a jeep and moved the body to the morgue for immediate attention. She then drove to Serenity’s suburb. The two brothers were lying in bed, exhausted by yet another day’s futile search. They were relieved because the search had ended, but angry that they hadn’t discovered Grandpa’s body sooner.