Moses Isegawa - Abyssinian Chronicles

Kasawo sympathized with this group, because all the killers had fled or were in hiding, and no one had been brought to justice.

As Kasawo sat, patiently watching all these people, she wondered whether this was not a nation of gullible moaners and corrupt mythmakers. The Vicar of the Devil was certainly a mythmaker, an enigma, but Kasawo did not agree with her sister that this was a nation of moaners. The pain was real. It was just a nation in search of proper leadership. She too needed guidance from time to time. She wondered whether her belief in enigmatic characters was not a nostalgic search for another man, a resurrection of the Pangaman of her pre-elopement days, the Pangaman who took charge of every aspect of her life. The nation, she felt, was in need not of repentance but of proper stocktaking and action. She personally fantasized about a good man to grow old with, somebody to take care of her. She could not help thinking that after the purification rites it would be that much easier to find him.

Kasawo waited for half a day. By the time her turn came and she passed through the polished wooden door of the consultation room, to be immersed in the crisp redness of the new bark cloths covering the roof, the walls and the floor, she was trembling with nervous irritation. Her center had been hollowed by fatigue. The dry woody smell coming off the bark cloth made her feel drowsy. The man in front of her looked bigger and more imperious. His huge eyes, guarded by hard-bristled caterpillar eyebrows, made her more restless. The wide round nostrils made her believe she was looking down a double-barrelled abyss. The woody smell made her fear that she was being chloroformed. This man was a new force, a juggernaut that fed on dirty old witch doctors and would not stop before engulfing all their customers. This man with his enormous wealth and imposing personality inspired instant faith. Kasawo felt like an old disciple.

“Give me all the details.” The words dropped from his despotic lips like heavy gongs whose reverberations were accentuated by the red darkness they were uttered in. Kasawo was grateful for the darkness: it made her feel less self-conscious. Unlike the time she went to see her parish priest, for the Vicar she did not reduce the number of her attackers by four. Kasawo told the man everything she remembered and even felt like adding elements from her imagination. At first it felt strange to hear herself in the darkness; then she got used to it. By the time she came to the end, words were flowing of their own accord. Her anxiety doubled during the subsequent silence. Her heart raced madly as she waited in the darkness for the big man’s verdict. He grunted and snorted and finally said that everything would be all right. The relief she felt was phenomenal.

Kasawo was sent to the dormitories, which turned out to be long buildings with either single or double rooms. There was a small shop selling soap, razor blades, bandages, cigarettes, salt, maize flour, tea leaves and other items necessary during a stay. Behind the kiosk, one could get cooked food, tea and porridge. The thought of porridge made Kasawo’s stomach turn. She hurried to her room.

There was a spring bed, a cupboard, a basin and a cement floor to rest her feet on as she contemplated the cost of all this. The Vicar was one of the few modern witch doctors who gave credit, because clients could not contemplate cheating them. Kasawo felt that the man deserved every cent he got: she had been here for only half a day, but she was already feeling better. As she lay on the bed waiting for night to fall, she wondered whether this was not a mental asylum where patients checked in whenever the burdens of the past and the present became too much to bear. She sat up in one fluid movement: the thought that her rape could be the figment of a diseased mind horrified her. No, no, no. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t, she said out loud. She lay back slowly, happy that she was not mad. She thought about a boy she had seen that day. He had been brought in fastened with ropes. His father said he was possessed by spirits. She remembered the boy’s blank eyes, so fathomless yet so shallow, and the way he fought when they untied him. It took three men to hold him before the Vicar came. She remembered the Vicar’s taking him by the hand and saying a few words to him. She remembered how he stroked the sick boy and led him inside. The power, the tenderness, the confidence, the many sides of the Vicar kept Kasawo thinking for a long time.

Dressed in black, a dry leopard tail in his hand, the man entered Kasawo’s room. He ordered her to undress, wrap a black sheet around her and follow him. It was past midnight. The compound was quite dark except for lights here and there in the sleeping rooms. They entered a banana grove and ended up behind a massive tree that loomed like a diabolical tower of terror. There was a cave under the tree, inside which were three basins full of cold water. Incantations poured into the air as water from the three basins dripped down Kasawo’s shivering body. Bits of herb stuck in her hair and on her body.

Back in her room, the man motioned her to spread a mat which was leaning against the wall on the floor and lie on it. In twenty years Kasawo had not lain down for punishment. It felt strange. Seven strokes of a dry bamboo cane found their mark. Confused, and in strange pain, she was led back to the cave. She bathed again. The water felt very cold, and she could not stop the tears which came with the quivers. The black clothes gave the man the arcane dimensions of a ghoul and made her feel both afraid and reassured. A man born to wield power. A man born to exorcise demons and conquer women.

On their way back, Kasawo became more convinced that God and the Devil were two sides of the same coin. They even used the same methodology in combatting opposition. So many years ago, when she had just met Pangaman, her mother had taken her to the parish priest under the pretext that they were going to buy rosaries. Kasawo was afraid of the white man. She became more afraid when her mother reported to him that she was fornicating with a man, drinking alcohol and treating her father with insolence. Her mother asked the priest to exorcise the demons tormenting her. The priest stood up and said very many Latin words. The expression on his face was deathly. He did not seem to see her or her mother. He finally reached for a cane and beat her. But not even he could beat Pangaman out of her.

The second time round, her mother took her to the mother superior of the parish convent. The nun listened in dead silence, a very sad and terrifying expression on her stern face. She looked at Kasawo for a long time, at the end of which she asked both mother and daughter to kneel. She led the rosary and the litany of the Virgin Mary. She dismissed the mother and asked Kasawo to stay behind. She locked the door and pocketed the key. She drew all the curtains and ordered her to strip. Kasawo did so woodenly. The nun asked her to lie on her back. She took a leather belt and whipped her twelve times between her legs. Kasawo cried out. She had never tasted such pain before. “Think about the nails your sins are driving into Jesus’ wounds and keep quiet,” the nun commanded. “Aren’t you ashamed of the pain your behavior is causing Our Lord?” The nun did not ask her not to tell her mother. She knew that the girl wouldn’t. The nun administered the same treatment every day at the same time for a week. It did not work. Soon after that, Kasawo eloped with Pangaman.

Back in her room, seven hard bamboo strokes found their mark again. The man ordered her to go to bed. She was bothered by the repetitions in her life, and especially by her inability to squeeze some usable wisdom out of them. Her thoughts could not coagulate. They flapped around like frog spawn in a swamp. The ordeals and the tears, however, had a very soporific effect.