Love’s dilemma (VII)
By Walije Gondwe
The old lady had fantastic theories: federation of countries meant that men were going around with other men’s wives, which was why it was a bad thing to come to Malawi. No doubt, the mixing together of countries brought about the mixing together of everything else, according to her.
For all her misunderstanding of things, she was a wonderful old woman, very clean, independent, with an enormous sense of humour. There was a story about her youngest son, Mlowok. He had enjoyed being carried on his mother’s back until he had over-grown the luxury, and she had got tired of his heavy weight. One day she strapped him to her back as usual, then went to a spot with a lot of sand. She stopped and slowly loosened the nguwo, probably, in those days, one made of animal skin. Mlowka fell off and instantly vowed never again to insist on being carried like a baby.
‘Yes, child of mine!’ said she, ‘Me, your mother, I fail these days to carry you. My strength has finished!’ or words to that effect endeavouring to suppress her giggles.
Then there was the occasion when Towera, as a little girl, was walking home from school one day. When she arrived at her grandmother’s combined maize and groundnuts field, she peered through the tall maize plants to see if she could see her. She saw a figure wearing a piece of black cloth, tucked in round the waist, with a matching headscarf, but no blouse. The figure was bending down. Not being sure, even though that was her grandmother’s usual way of dress, she called out anxiously, ‘Agogo! Agogo! Are you Agogo?’ a few times, but the ‘creature’ carried on weeding with its fingers. Then suddenly it turned round abruptly, exposing its brownish looking teeth. As Towera ran for her life, fast as a frightened rabbit, screaming as loud as her voice could manage, her grandmother nearly choked laughing.
Towera reached home and feel on her mother’s lap, totally out of breath: ‘Agogo! Agogo! She…. but,’ showing her own teeth to demonstrate how she had looked. ‘I do not know what it is!’ She couldn’t speak, and she was not positive it was her grandmother.
Shortly afterwards her grandmother arrived, still laughing, with tears streaming down her cheeks. It was then that Towera was able to say what had happened. Her mother and everybody else started laughing, then she too tried to laugh, but only tried. She was still shaking from fear.
Towera then asked her grandmother to show the rest how she had frightened her. She duly obliged but Towera covered her eyes, while the others said they were glad it had been her and not them at the time. Her teeth had apparently turned brown because she had been eating mathuvya, tender groundnut shell with nuts not yet formed in them, very sweet and crunchy too they are.
The greatest honour that had ever been bestowed on Towera was everyone telling her how much she looked like her grandmother. But there was one thing that her grandmother disliked about her: she never sat still long enough to have a chat when her grandmother came to visit at her mother’s house. She was always on her feet doing this, that and everything. Sometimes she came round to ask her for a nice hot bath, lend her the bathroom, and wash her back. They used to have great fun washing each other’s backs. Grandmother always insisted on returning the service, so Towera had to have her own bath to square up matters.
Once Biku had been weaned Towera worried that her breast had drooped. She made herself a bra from some old materials so that she could regain the original firmness of her bosom. This amused her sister, Nkhweruzga, who stated that a mother did not wear a bra, neither was it at all necessary for her to cover up her breasts any more
Towera took no notice. When she started earning, she bought herself a proper bra, determined to restore her youth. She examined her breast every day, but she cold not detect any improvement. When she saw no change in the shape she felt badly let down and that the whole exercise had been a flop. In fact it was all in her imagination. She had obviously kept in her mind the shape of the breasts when she was pregnant and when she was nursing, and not before, the shape to which they had now returned.
On the night in question, Towera won her first round with Luka. Having pushed his hand off, she quickly wrapped herself up in the bed sheet and blanket from head to toes, curling up like a worm. Her knees would have touched her chin had it not been for her hands being in the way, clinging on like glue to her dear chest. When he tried again she wriggled like a fish out of water. The bed was too narrow for them both and several times Luka fell off like a bag of maize but, undeterred, he staggered back up again.
The wrestling match went on all night until the morning hours, when Luka did concede defeat with a few bites here and there!
When he left he said he was very sorry to have behaved ‘like an animal’ which Towera thought was grossly insulting to the species. He hoped Towera could understand. No, she couldn’t and didn’t understand. She felt he was trying to keep his cousin respectable as his real future wife, and the thought of her constantly nagged at Towera.
The next few days Luka behaved himself, but kept referring to that night whenever the opportunity arose. He told Towera that she was tempting him. ‘I am not a Catholic priest!’ he complained. She didn’t answer him. From that night he stopped sending her to post his letters to his cousin and tried to avoid her name. But Towera was not fooled into thinking that he had stopped writing to her altogether.
Eventually Luka found it difficult to stay celibate, as he put it. He started staying late again and then following her to the bedroom. Still Towera refused to give in, night after night.
When Mkazi Mkuru returned from Rumpi, Towera brought her up to date with all the news. Mkazi Mkuru was very pleased about the proposal and that she had been right about the other girls, but she was rather suspicious and unhappy about his engagement to his cousin. She firmly warned Towera to be careful.
‘I showed you wisdom,’ she reminded Towera, who knew exactly what her wise friend meant, even though she had shown her wisdoms too numerous to remember.
Towera did not doubt the power of love potions and things like that despite her education, especially since association with Mkazi Mkuru. Still, she had always felt too pround to have to rely on them in order to keep a man, but she valued her friendship with Mkazi Mkuru too much to risk disappointing her. So she decided without letting her know that she would never resort to such means even now, come what may. ‘If a man loves me he loves me, if he doesn’t he doesn’t,’ she told herself.
In the morning Towera obediently set about removing the beads. She lay down a round mkeka and knelt down on it, took a pair of scissors and started to snip, one by one: yellow ones, red ones, blue ones and beads of all other colours. Her hipbone had looked like a mini-rainbow before she took them off.
As she cut off the strings Towera wondered if her new man was all that he seemed to be or if he was, well, sort of funny in some peculiar way. What really normal, hot-blooded male, scholar or non-scholar, would fail to tremble when in collision with a well-stocked-up hip-bone!
At that point Towera stopped snipping and reflected: never in a million years could anyone have convinced her that higher schooling would have done away with the appetite of those randy boys in Standard 3, who had terrorized her and made her life hell! Not even if they had become professors of disciplines with names unspellable! It did not help her that she was the only girl in her class. She always had to make sure that the teacher was within her sight before she could venture to go in or out of the classroom. Even if she had had the gift of an octopus, with countless hands, it would have been impossible for her to fend off the boys as they clamoured behind her pushing one another.
She snipped off two more strings and then stopped again. This time she had forgotten that she was alone and started talking to herself. ‘Let’s face it, my hip-bone has had the privilege of being molested by a well-learned hand or two, in pursuit of the stimulus under discussion, and, quite frankly, the sensation has been absolutely phenomenal, and mutually so, I might add!’ she revealed, with all the confidence of a person in the company of a friend.
Towera thought that the effect of the beads on any virile male was bad enough if he just heard the sound of them as the woman ran (often on purpose) or even if he was to see their outlines under the thin material of her clothing.