Kampala
January, 1994
The heat has swallowed up everything. Sucking up the air; sticking its sticky and sickly swollen fingers through countless windows and underneath countless doors. Asserting its throat drying dominance by cracking lips, slicking bed sheets and propelling sleepless souls from sweltering bedrooms to plastic cups and open fridges to cold veranda floors in search of some sort of relief.
None is to be had, however- the whole city is on fire.
Only the air conditioned will have a chance at rest tonight and Lord knows how those are but a precious few.
Even the ones with fans will probably burn because all they do is push the hot air around; moving it from here to there.
It is in this heat, this furnace of an existence that we once again meet Conrad and his two siblings. Him and his older brother Jacob in one room, sharing a bunk bed; and their sister, Connie, in another.
Their mother sleeps in the master bedroom at the end of the hallway, not soundly however, because whenever the space of mattress next to her is devoid of the warmth of her husband's body, soundly is an impossibility.
It is late, probably past midnight and a school night at that but none of the children are asleep. Connie reads by pocket torch, Conrad and Jacob talk in whispered tones of songs played on radios and grown up movies on VHS tapes watched at the neighbours’ house.
And then they hear it.
All four of them at the very same moment- and freeze.
The engine, the car door, the gate- he’s home and they all know that when he comes home this late, it means trouble.
Quickly and in spite of the heat the boys clench their blankets with trembling fists and cover themselves, turning their bodies so that their noses are facing away from the door and towards the wall.
Connie's torch produces a quiet Click! and it's thin beam of light is gone and both torch and book are tossed under the bed.
Their mother lies on her back, eyes wide open, chest heaving, ears tuned to hear every movement, every sound.
The jingle of keys, the front door opens and a giant of a man, in both girth and height stumbles in. He reeks of booze, of anger and of a hunger that only a woman’s body can satisfy.
We watch from a shadowy corner as the bumbling giant stumbles into the kitchen, barely manages the fridge door and rummages around in search of something to eat. What he finds is a plate made especially for him; rice, chicken, greens with sweet potatoes. The only draw back? It is cold and even though all he had to do is stick it in the microwave for two minutes, he didn't have the patience nor the mental dexterity to do so in his current state of inebriation.
The giant swears and tosses the plate of food across the kitchen, breaking it, painting the floor, counter tops and even cupboard doors with bits of food.
He stares at the mess he has made for a moment and then like a flipped switch decides that he wasn't hunger for food anyway. He was, however, hungry for something else.
With swaying steps, bumping into things, he makes his way to his bedroom. We follow him. He opens the door and closes it behind him.
A deep sense of foreboding plunges my heart into a well filled with dread. Something bad is going to happen, I just know it. And so I hesitate entering the room, lingering before the shut door, reaching out for your hand with bated breath, hoping against hope that my fears are wrong.
I wait for a minute; maybe three and just as I'm about to let out a sigh of relief, the screaming begins.
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