Tropical Fish PDF

# TROPICAL FISH ## Tales from Entebbe ### DORREEN BAINGANA ## Green Stones I was once a child, growing up in Entebbe, spending most of my time with Rusi, the housegirl, especially during the holidays, while my older sisters were away at boarding school. I followed Rusi around the house in the mor...

# TROPICAL FISH ## Tales from Entebbe ### DORREEN BAINGANA ## Green Stones I was once a child, growing up in Entebbe, spending most of my time with Rusi, the housegirl, especially during the holidays, while my older sisters were away at boarding school. I followed Rusi around the house in the mornings as she cleaned up. It was a fun way to idle away the time. Rusi talked incessantly to herself or to whoever was around. She spoke Luganda only. She complained that I disturbed her, didn't help at all, that I just followed her around like an irritating little dog. Couldn't I find something useful to do, she would moan. Oh, when would school start again so she could have her quiet house back. I spoiled everything. Don’t touch that, or that, she yelled, as if the clothes or plates or pictures were hers. You’ll break it, you little rat! She’d swipe at my bare feet with a broom or bedsheet, which I’d dodge, giggling, and continue to follow her through the house. The room I loved most was my mother and father’s bedroom, mostly because we were not allowed into it. The room was kept dim, its thick curtains patterned with blood-red roses closed to keep the heat out. This red glow added to its sacredness, as if it were a quiet, empty cathedral or mysterious fortune-teller’s den. At night in bed, sucking my thumb furiously, I went over imaginary fears; they were an irresistible itch I scratched again and again. What if I was caught sneaking around the forbidden room opening drawers, reading letters, sniffing the faint mysterious smells of Maama and Taata; cigarettes, polish, powder, perfume, sweat, and more? I imagined suddenly hearing Taata’s heavy ringing footsteps. They got louder as he came down the corridor. I was trapped! I froze, then as hastened to hide, tripped over a chair and fell. Down crashed the wooden chair right on top of me. Maama’s bright jewelry flew out of my hands and colored the air like fat butterflies, before cascading down and shattering repeatedly, spreading tiny cutting shards all over the floor. Precious beads rolled under the wide bed, joining lost brushes, coins, and dust, never to be found again. The door creaked open delicious terror. Why did I dread and dream about this? Why did I fear Taata? When Rusi bustled in to clean my parents’ room, however, with me trailing behind her, the room became ordinary. Rusi pushed the huge mound of her breasts like pillows ahead of her as she energetically marched in. She pulled back the thick curtains and flung open the windows to the startling sunshine outside, the squawk and trill of birds, the shouts and the escape of raggedy kids surprised to be seen stealing mangoes from the tree nearest my parents’ bedroom. With Rusi there and the dark red glow gone, the solemn church became a rowdy marketplace. My parents’ huge throne of a bed, still unmade, was just a bed, ruffled and somehow smaller. Sprinklings of dust floated in the sunlight as Rusi shook out the sheets and dusted the coffee-colored bedside tables and mirror. Her talk and laughter filled the air, offending me. Had she no sense of the room’s sacredness? But when I lay down on my parents’ bed, Rusi chased me off with a wild swing that was meant to miss. I couldn’t help laughing her flabby underarms flapping like wings. Rusi was easy to laugh at. I teased her about the neighbor’s shamba-boy, Paulo, who bought her a hand mirror, gave her old calendar pictures, and even a pair of shoes. He used a mirror himself every morning, right outside his one-window boys’ quarters. His daily ritual was to wet, oil, comb, and pat his hair into shape. He combed and patted, combed and patted, admired the round Afro shape from all sides, and then came to the kitchen door to ask Rusi for tea and her time. She didn’t get angry when I teased her; rather, she called Paulo a fool and joked about his big head and floppy ears, then joined me in laughter. Rusi’s laugh was special, a spectacular performance. First a grunt, deep in her chest, ggrrumph, as if she was mad about something, then a louder guffaw, once, paced out. More silence as she gathered her breath and energy, grimacing as though she had a bellyache, as if the joke was killing her, and then, just when you thought it wasn’t going to happen this time, she really was mad, the volcano erupted, the tornado, the hurricane! There was nothing else to do but giggle as I watched her with awe and some apprehension. What if she choked? But no, she moved through louder, shriller laughing stages. She couldn’t be stopped or helped. Any word would send her deeper into the vortex of sound and painful glee as she clutched her trembling breasts, bent over like an old woman, held her back for support, roaring, then bent backwards, her breasts reaching up into the air-you just had to laugh in applause. Finally, she would wipe tears off her face, sighing, eeh-eh, ahhhh, Katonda wange! My God! to calm herself down. When she turned back to her broom, dust cloth, or washing, I felt I had been through a religious experience and had landed exhausted, but safe and sane, on the other side. Once Rusi recovered and was back at work I had to stop giggling, or she would turn on me sternly. "Are you laughing at me? Who are you laughing with? Not me, for sure, get out, ggenda! Let me work, take your teeth somewhere else,” she’d grumble, as she swept me furiously out of the room. Her mirth left her joyless, angry almost, as if she had exhausted all her resources of humor. Much as I loved Rusi’s company, after lunch was my time alone, in the heavy heat of the afternoon, when the only sound was the droning of a bumblebee caught in a window net somewhere. I was supposed to sleep off my lunch after Maama and Taata returned to work. Rusi cleared up the meal and left dishes sparkling with clean water in the kitchen, then she too went to her room in the boys’ quarters at the back of our compound. I lay in bed rereading the adventure stories of Enid Blyton or the Narnia books until all was quiet, then crept off for my own adventure. My parents’ door always creaked open, as if there was someone calling me in, another naughty child like me, my invisible counterpart in the netherworld. Yet again, to my surprise, the glowing, mysterious room was real. The rosy air was thick with secrets. This forever twilight, hidden from the hard stare of the afternoon sun outside, was a presence I breathed in deeply. Ah, those silent, hazy afternoons, when even the birds took a siesta; it was too hot to flit around squealing and trilling. The silence became louder as another heavy, buzzing bluebottle fly knocked itself senseless behind the blood-red curtains, trapped blindly between glass and net. I left the door slightly ajar to clearly see Maama’s forbidden treasure. In the dim light two tall mahogany wardrobes looked like huge dark priests silently disapproving of me. Luckily, they were too fat to move, so I stuck out my tongue at them. There! Up on the wall above the bed was a photograph of my father’s parents, but I wasn’t scared of them either; they were much too old to count. Still, just in case, I greeted them silently in Runyankore: Agandi, basebo. Taata’s mother, Omukikuru, was still alive, but lived far away in the village, Rusozi, so she wouldn’t know what I was up to. She never smiled, and when she visited, which was rare, thank God, she refused to eat Rusi’s food because she is a Muganda. Maama had to leave work early and cook special dishes for her: black beans prepared with ghee, or steamed biringanya. Despite Maama’s efforts, Omukikuru’s mouth got tighter and tighter with disapproval. I really didn’t like it when she visited. Taata’s father died long before I was born. He had the fiercest face I had ever seen, possibly because of a life spent with my grandmother. In the photo, his face was wrinkled into a tight scrawl. He held his kanzu firmly straight down with huge hands wound over and over with prominent veins. Was his kanzu about to spring open and show his legs? I covered my giggle with my hand because even I knew one shouldn’t laugh at the dead, especially at your own relatives, who are looking out for you. But I did every time, and so far nothing had happened. Maama said such things are true only if you believed them, so I didn’t. The same with juju, which I did want to believe in sometimes, especially when a school friend dropped me for someone else, or a teacher mocked me before the whole class. Even after my respectful greeting, my grandparents continued to stare down at me balefully, as if they already knew I would come to no good. I didn’t dare stick out my tongue at them, so I saluted, then bowed deeply. I whispered, “Dear Taata’s daddy, if you are in heaven, please pray for me. I know we aren’t Catholics; I should only pray through Jesus, but all the same, don’t let me get punished. I’m just looking at God’s beautiful creations, okay? Amen.” I felt much better. I always did. My grandfather felt closer to me in heaven than my grandmother in the village. A huge oval mirror hung in between two columns of chocolate-brown drawers. The mirror turned on its axis, attached to the drawers, and I was always careful not to move it, not to leave any tracks. I dragged a chair up and climbed onto it. The tingliest moment was just before opening the top drawer. Oh, what if there was no brilliance of disorganized rainbow colors as smooth as beach stones, or as rough as sand, and in all shapes possible? But time after suspenseful time, there they were; a confirmation that beauty was magically real. As I slowly opened the drawer, color burst out like flashbulbs popping. There lay heaps of gold and green, like a strange spicy Asian or Arab dish. The place the jewelry took me to was better than heaven. They were rainbow shells washed up on a fantasy shore. The bead necklaces matching earrings and bracelets were from Kenya, Nigeria, India, and other countries only traced on maps. The teeny-tiny round colored ants wandered up and down long paths of string in designs of blue and white, or strong red, shiny black, burning yellow; colors of the Uganda flag. There were trembling, see-through , water-blue thick globs of glass. Shiny stones of black and purple that slithered through my fingers like thieves. Pearls of an ivory magnificence that spoke of something deeper than white, something older. Royalty. Angels’ tears. I took it all in as slowly as I could. First with my eyes only, closing them for a moment, then opening them again for the surprise of wild color. Then I passed my hands and arms through the cold stones, slowly turning over the careless heaps, watching them catch the dim light and throw it back in a conversation I understood but couldn’t translate. The stones rattled like feisty tambourines, or gurgled low and heavy as they knocked against one another, good luck. I worshiped the color with both hands, rubbing each bead as one would a rosary, then lifted the necklaces up and watched them ripple through my hands like silvery water. My hands warmed them, and then I held them to my cheeks. The smooth stones caressed, the rough beads scratched and tickled. Was this what it was like to be kissed? I breathed in deeply. Ah, Maama’s perfume. That wasn’t enough; I had to taste them. I placed one black bead necklace in my mouth and sucked, enjoying its texture and tastelessness. I could hear Maama say, far away in my head, Get that out of your mouth, you’ll fall sick! That made me suck even harder. What if I swallowed one and choked to death! I would be a princess dying for beauty. Finally, I put on as many of the necklaces as I could, moving them over my head in worshipful dance movements, head bowed solemnly, then up with secret ritualistic pleasure. My chest grew heavier and heavier as the beads and stones and glass trailed down to my knees. Maama’s ears were not pierced, so I could wear her clip-on earrings too. I put on two pairs, feeling them hold on to each earlobe with a sharp, sweet bite. Carefully, I climbed down the chair, necklaces and bracelets and earrings swaying, moved the chair away, and faced the mirror. I leaned forward slowly, sedately, and turned on the lamp covered in red brocade and fringe to match the curtains. I stared at the girl in the orange-reddish glow. Who was she? The rows of glittering color made her beautiful. She could be anyone: a queen, a bishop, a rich loved wife. I passed into blessed existence, where one lived to be beautiful, soft, and rounded out, with red lips, red nails, and glowing stones all over. I was decorated, celebrated, a Christmas tree, here to make the room shine, to turn the world to happiness. I lifted the jewelry and covered my face. I couldn’t stay solemn; laughter bubbled up inside. I peeked through the shiny stones and stuck out my tongue. My twin did the same and we giggled. Then I practiced my poses; now a young shy princess, or Cinderella at the ball, up on one foot because of the lost glass slipper. A cardinal waving the sign of the cross through the air, then spraying incense all over. What about a multicolored starfish swirling deep through the azure water of Atlantis? Now, a Paris model posing for flashing cameras, smoking a long cigarette, sending out flying kisses. I could hear the crowd cheer. The jewelry jingled with delighted laughter. The final act was the best one of all: being my mother. When I grew up, I would use lots of cool white cream like she did: Ponds, Venus de Milo, cocoa butter, perfumes called Lady, Chanel, Essence. I’d paint my fingernails and toenails with designs in glaring red, and fling my hands around dramatically like a conjurer. Wear lots of lacy panties, petticoats, bras, and stockings, all in frilly white and pink, with flowers and sequins, and become Maama. Women were nice and pleasant and sweet, like a bowl of fruit or fresh flowers. Men smelt of cigarettes and beer and wore dull dark colors. The choice was clear. What would I do then, as a grown-up? I would become real. I definitely wouldn’t go back to the village, oh no. An actress on TV, perhaps? I’d have to speak good Luganda, though. Or, I’d untie my plaits and pile my long hair up into a glossy crown; it would have grown long, really long, by then. I practiced being a white actress in the mirror, my voice squeaking in a high, fake accent. No, not that; I’d be a president’s wife, a good president, not an army man, of course! I’d give money to orphans with beriberi, advise them to eat beans and peas, not just posho, which is corn starch and nothing else. In the mirror I ordered my maid, Bring me some sweets. Demanded sternly, Why didn’t you wash my panties properly? I wouldn’t go to work, like Maama did; instead, I’d spend the whole day preparing my body, and wait patiently and beautifully for my husband, the president. No, no husband; I’d go to bars every night, like Taata, or to parties! Maama didn’t go out at night, not to parties. Her jewelry was left in the drawers, neglected. Every time Taata went on a trip, he brought Maama beads and pearls as gifts. We didn’t mind his traveling; we were freer then, and Maama was ours. And yet, the day he was to come back, the air itself felt different. Maama wore a special dress, usually flimsy, pale pink or blue, and bolder lipstick. Rusi cleaned out their room thoroughly, and made our supper early so they could eat alone. Sometimes we witnessed the ceremony, the giving out of gifts, if we were quiet and well behaved. Otherwise Taata quickly sent us out of the room. He was like that. He greeted us, me and my older sisters, as a group. “Are you being good at school?” Then we were forgotten. Our new shoes and Christmas dresses were passed to Maama to give to us. He held on to one or two glossy patterned jewelry boxes. I remember the green stones especially. Taata, an accountant, had come from an international conference in Egypt. The very word, Egypt, spelled magic. I told my school friends every day he was away, “My father’s in Egypt,” until they got fed up and said, “Stop boasting, you, as if it’s you who’s there! Why don’t you go there and stay!” They were simply jealous, I thought smugly as I flounced away. Taata brought back maroon tuffets with golden designs of pharaohs’ heads, angular and regal. He brought framed pictures of palm trees and pyramids. But the real Egypt was hidden in the emerald box in my father’s hands. I held my breath as he opened it and pulled out, for miles and miles, a dark green snake: grass green, bottle green, lime, first leaves, old leaves, every other shade of green. My breath slowly escaped as the stone trail unwound forever upward like a snake possessed, wooed by my father. Our eyes followed it, worshiping the lacquered stones’ dance with the lamplight. Taata walked over to Maama’s chair. She was looking at his face, not at the necklace. He placed the box down, held the green rosary in both hands, and said, “For you.” She bowed her head and he gently passed the heavy green stones over her hair and neck, then arranged them carefully on her bosom. We watched as though we didn’t know who they were, as though it was a movie. She was crowned; he was her humble subject. She accepted his adoration with a smile in the silence. We were soon sent off to bed, where I went over the scene, savoring it like an exquisite piece of chocolate slowly melting in my mouth. For you-just like that--for you. He had chosen her. They didn’t kiss in front of us, or touch each other, or say dear, unless Taata was drunk. That was embarrassing TV behavior. But who, who would put a string of fire, red, purple, or green, round my neck and say, For you, Christine? I was glad when Taata went on his trips. The house became lighter, and I could shout and run about freely without Maama saying, “Don’t disturb Taata, he’s watching TV." He’s reading, he’s sleeping. Don’t exist so loudly. We wouldn’t have to rush to bed when he came home late in the evening, when he had been drinking, when he became the other Taata, the uglier, noisier one. Normally, Taata didn’t speak to us; he spoke to Maama. If we had something to tell him-school grades, a school trip we needed money for, a telephone messagewe told Maama. Sober, he was stern, silent, immobile. How was he moved to buy presents for Maama? What did she do to transform him to warmth, to melt him? Late at night, when I was already in bed, I sometimes heard the other Taata, the drunk, dancing, rowdy Taata; the one who cried. I rarely saw this opposite of him; that was Maama’s private show. He put a blues record on the player and wailed along with it. “My baby's goooone…” Could that really be my father? I heard, or did I imagine, the shuffling as he tried to grab Maama and dance. Her muffled protests always ended in silence. I listened, knowing I was far outside their drama. Taata held himself in all day like an ever-present threat, and then at night unleashed himself and his whole tight day on Maama. As my parents’ voices receded toward their bedroom, an argument inevitably began. Taata grunted a word or two, low commas to Maama’s continuous sentence of complaint, a wail, a plaintive song. Her voice choked with tears. She seemed to be forcing them back while letting streams of anger pour out. Cowering under my sheets, wide-eyed, I could tell she was trying to keep her voice down, but Taata’s short snarls of avoidance made her voice rise and rise like water angrily boiling. “I’m doing everything on my own, everything, while you run around with your friends. Do you know what the children eat, what they wear? Omukikuru, your own mother, is sick, but who are your cousins calling? Me! This roof needs repairs; the Rwashibingas need their taps fixed; we have to decide whether to sell that house or not, and what do you do? Drink, drink, drink! I can’t do everything, I can’t.” Taata woke something up in Maama that drenched her voice with feeling. With us, she was quiet and tired; we worked hard to get her attention. When we told her about school adventures, she simply smiled and nodded absentmindedly. With Taata, Maama was alive-with anger and frustration, yes, but alive. Her voice was rich blood pouring out of a cut vein. Her pain filled my head with all sorts of unnamed feelings, not happiness or sadness but something deeper, sweeter, more horrible. Desire? I wanted to keep on hearing her voice because it was so real. This was who she was, and not just our mother. We children knew we were an afterthought, outside this world of their own. A heavy door banged shut, sometimes with a sweet word, a gift, but more often with a harsh question, an answering mocking laugh. There they remained; locked in the room of marriage. Once, I had to get up and use the bathroom near the sitting room because ours wasn't working. I had to. I crept barefoot down the corridor, hoping to slide past the open light of the living room unseen. I did, and saw Taata crying. He was saying, "Sorry, sorry." I hid behind the long curtains, I just couldn't move away. Maama said, "Stop it, I don't believe you. Stop drinking, or just drink and stop pretending you're sorry." His heaving pleas rose. "Never again, never, never!" “Please, Yakobo,” my mother whispered to make him stop shouting. “Please, the children are asleep.” “Fuck the children.” Loudly, gutturally, as if he wanted us to hear. I did. “Fuck them.” So slow he said it, frothing at the mouth, with a drunken swing of his heavy head, as if fuck could not come out easily, as if he had to use each syllable fully to get the meaning out. I didn’t know what fuck meant, but the sound of it, the frothy “fff,” the relish he added to the “uck” as he said it again, cutting it up, made it dangerous and evil, yet desirable, powerful, eatable, a magical chant against sainthood, guilt, against daylight itself. Ffuuucck. The word hypnotized. It spelled out the need to shock, to be free. To shed daytime silences, restraint, professionalism, pretense. The freedom to drink till he puked. Fuck. As extravagant as the outrageous brilliance of Maama’s gold gifts. Fuck as heavy as the green-gold stones. The choking weight of their relationship. A love wrapped in insults and complaints, drunken nights, slobbery sorries, and silent mornings. A strong secret bedroom smell that was very beautiful, and adult, like knowing and using and meaning the word fuck. I was repelled, fascinated, trapped. After these bitter evenings, the next time I sneaked into their room, I acted out their play as both Maama and Taata. After the first blinding instant of the jewelry drawer opening, I passed my hand through the treasure, sighing. It was safe. Then I put the necklaces over my head, saying, "for you, for you." In front of the mirror I mimicked Maama’s high cries, pointing a ringed finger at the mirror. “You bad man, you beer-drinker, you go to dungeons of sin, bring your friends home late at night, and then you refuse to eat your supper. Bad man! We don’t see you for days and days. Why don’t you take the children for rides or come to Parents’ Day at school? If you buy me more necklaces, maybe I’ll forgive you. Maybe!” I turned full circle and faced myself again as Taata, grunting, “I’m so sorry. Beer is sweet and the house is boring. Don’t point your finger at me-I’m a man.” Giggling, I fell backwards on their wide rose-covered bed, and the colorful beads and stones jingled. I finally calmed down to silence, let my mind wander through the dim red darkness, and watched the thin arrows of light cut through the curtains. Sparkling dust weaved slowly through the air. I held myself tight and breathed deeply. It was all wound up together, a sweet and painful push and pull, pull and push. When did they stop talking to each other? Stop trying? When they stopped fighting. When Taata gave up the struggle and got drunk every morning, not just at night. We all got used to it; found it funny even, this dedication to his drinking duties. We had our duties too. They fell on me when my sisters were away. To go pick Taata up from the street when he collapsed on his way home. Answer the door to his fellow drunkards who had lent him money and now wanted it back. Light his cigarettes because he couldn’t do it anymore; his hands trembled too much. Wash him when was ill. He still our father; we did what were told. One day, I came back from school early because I had a cold. I had lost my voice and my nose was blocked, so the P.E. teacher sent me home. I entered the house through the kitchen door. Rusi wasn’t there; perhaps she was back in her room I thought. It was very quiet, just like most afternoons. But then I heard murmurs from The Bedroom. No one was supposed to be home. I wasn’t afraid, but something made me tiptoe over. The door was ajar, one curtain half open, letting in shafts of light. There was Taata with no shirt on. What was he doing home? I could see he was drunk because his face was an oily brown and he had on a slack silly smile. He was sitting on the bed with no shirt on, no trousers. Rusi was sitting on the floor below him, smiling. When Taata was drunk he said empty things, talked about himself, about all the great things he had done once, but not anymore, the countries he had traveled to, the awards received, on and on. He needed an audience, but we had got tired of humor- ing him. That, maybe, was what Rusi was doing, what she was forced to do, to listen to his ramblings. He must have called her into their room, I guess. She had to smile, to pretend to listen to him, to act servile. He had studied in Rome; did she know where that was? He had traveled to Moscow, oh, but what did she know; she had never even seen snow, let alone left Uganda. How could Rusi refuse to listen? How could she leave? She was the housegirl. She couldn’t stand over him; her place was there, on the floor. Rusi couldn’t sit on their bed, so she sat on the floor and smiled. She who spoon-fed him when he was weak and delirious after severe drinking bouts. She probably had saved his life more than once. But there she was, not free, like Maama, to unleash anger. Taata still was the boss. I was stuck at the door, looking at his naked chest, hairless, the light brown color of weak tea. Rusi close by, his knee touching one of her heavy breasts. They both turned to the door; Rusi’s smile got stuck in a grotesque grin. Taata raised his arm weakly, slurring, calling, “Patti, I mean Christi... is that Christine, no-you, who are you anyway? Rosa? Come here!” His rising voice woke me up, and for the first time I disobeyed him, ignored him, and walked away. That wasn’t my bedroom after all. My father died fifteen years ago. I moved to the United States, where fuck is an everyday word. I am a woman now, I guess, but so unlike my mother. I don’t wear lipstick or makeup or long flowing skirts. I feel silly in them. I don’t wear jewelry either. Bright colors look gaudy, cheap, and tasteless in real life. Fake pearls, of course, are fake. I went home last summer for a visit. My mother is still in the same house. Rusi was sent back to her village after Taata died. Maama said she was missing things, one by one, and who else needed to steal blouses, shoes, but Rusi? I found that hard to believe, after all those years she’d been with us, but didn’t say anything. I had never told Maama what I’d seen in their room. Maama is so much more at ease, and now looks after her grandnieces, children of my cousin who died. She lets them run through the house, even into her bedroom, muddy shoes and all. Is this the same Maama? One day I found the girls, Nyakato and Kengoma, playing with the magical stones I carried in my mind like recurring dreams. “Maama! Your jewelry...” She said, “Well, it’s old, now.” “Yes but, but-Taata gave it to you!” “Eeh-Christine, calm down. I never wore it that much, anyway.” I wanted to cry. The glass and stones and beads were much smaller than they used to be. The pearls were a ghastly plastic, peeling even, like children’s garish toys. The bead necklaces had hundreds of my lovely little ants missing, the dull bare string hung limp, and the uneven pattern of the remaining beads was like a gap-filled evil grin. My nieces spread them out on the floor and asked me to play with them. Counting games, shooting games, marbles, money games. Not “I am a beautiful princess from under the sea.” The secrets the beads shared with me-were they all lies? Who had struck the living stones dumb? I ran my hands over my favorite, the green and gold necklace from Egypt. It was, surprisingly, still whole. But no longer was it made of the royal stones that charmed King Tutankhamen’s daughter, me. No, the stones were the dull, empty shells of dead insects, gray cockroaches, coarse and scratched and old. Faded, the color of dried grass. My nieces didn’t mind. “Auntie Christine, those are our coins, worth only one cent each, ‘coz they’re so ugly. Maama’s room, without Taata, was just like any other. Nice, light, untidy. Where was my father’s presence, so guilt-ridden and drunkenly passionate? My grandparents looked old and weak, even though they still stared hard at the camera. Now they looked like they feared the strange instrument rather than disapproved of it. I blurted out to Maama, “Do you miss Taata?” She looked at me, mildly incredulous. “What’s wrong, Christine?” “Just asking.” She shrugged and turned to my niece Nyakato, who had come in. What had passed was gone. Why was I searching through ashes? I had lived off his love for her, like a leech. That should have been enough.