Kampala

1

It should have been their wedding day. A simple, but formal ceremony at the Registry Office, with two witnesses. Then they would settle into their forever-after. The white wedding would follow later, they had agreed three years back, when they had their traditional kwanjula ceremony.

Instead, Kagaba spent most of the day with a travel agent, who was trying to get him a cheaper air ticket to the UK. Ajuna spent hers at home, plowing through a pile of undergraduate essays. The traditional ceremony had depleted their finances—Ajuna’s, to be precise—since Kagaba was still unemployed. They were now in a desperate situation. They needed to find at least three hundred pounds more in four days’ time for Kagaba’s travel. How had they come to this?

Today, Ajuna marshaled her not-so-good cooking skills to prepare Kagaba’s favorite food: matooke and smoked fish in groundnut sauce, with steamed dodo on the side. He declined her offer of a late lunch, saying he didn’t feel like eating or drinking anything, and headed straight to the bedroom.

After a while Ajuna followed him. He had undressed to his underpants, his shirt and jeans strewn on the floor. Ajuna picked up his clothes, folded and laid them out on the cane chair at the foot of the bed. Was he already asleep? Straightened out on the bed facing the wall, his tall frame extended to the base of the bed, his feet touching the chair.

Ajuna stripped off her kitenge wrapper, the only garment covering her body, and stretched out beside him. She slipped her hand inside his underwear, pressed her breasts against his smooth back and placed her leg between his. Kagaba always made the first move, but over the past few weeks, Ajuna had grown bold. Kagaba stirred, gently pushed her hand away. “I can’t, Ajuna ... a headache.”

She nibbled at his earlobe and placed her hand on his warm thigh.

“Ajuna …”

She massaged his nape, teasing the curly hairs covering his lower neck. The rest of his hair was not like that. It was dense and deep black but not curly. A current coursed through her body.

“You provocative thing,” Kagaba muttered, pulling in his legs, moving his torso away from hers.

“What did you say?” She burrowed her head into his furry chest, kissing his shoulders.

“Go away.” His eyes remained closed. She tried to stimulate him once more, in vain. She got up, sat on the bed and watched him sleep. For a moment, she wondered what the day would have been like had they got married. She wondered what the future held. When they had set today as their wedding day about five months back, she would never have imagined anything disrupting their plans; least of all, Kagaba’s leaving for the UK. But here they were—planning for a departure instead of celebrating.

She covered her nakedness with the wrapper and padded to the kitchen, the cold cement under her bare feet soothing away her rejection. The laundry was still lying in the baskets near the washing machine under the sink, which was also full to the brim with unwashed dishes. She had expected the cleaning woman to come in today; she might still make it; it wasn’t evening yet.

She moved to the living room, the throbbing between her legs receding. The coffee table had turned into a dressing table: a comb, a tin of hair oil, a jar of Vaseline, a book she had been reading the previous day. On the floor, more students’ essays lay in a heap, unmarked. On the couch, her laptop was still open. About twenty emails sat sullenly in her inbox. She needed to find the courage to tackle her domestic mess. Right now, she felt unmoored.

She picked up one of the essays and skimmed through the first three pages. The opening quote was borrowed from William Adams’s Green Development: Environment and Sustainability in the Third World. There was no citation at the bottom of the page. She turned to the last page, searching for the bibliography. None. She looked at the name on the first page: Nansikombi Margaret. It was impossible to know who she was in a class of a hundred and thirty students. Yet, the administration expected her to give attention to each student in addition to other administrative roles.

Her own research assignment had gone two weeks past its deadline. She now doubted her wisdom in starting on her PhD so soon after finishing her master’s degree. Her salary was inadequate; she was still living in the tiny one-bedroomed apartment offered by the university. Her man was leaving— before their marriage.