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.
Kasawo woke up late the following afternoon. The red tiles of the Vicar’s residence peeped at her from her window with the seductiveness of a sweet fading fire. She was overwhelmed by the noise of activity in the compound, and she wondered how she had slept through it. As night dropped like a dark veil she went to the kiosk to buy some food. Moths had appeared. They circled the lamps in dizzying yellow arcs. She sat on her bed and ate. She retrieved a moth’s wing from her mouth. She spat and threw away the food.
As Kasawo waited for the man to arrive, she thought about how the therapy worked. She had told him everything about the attack and much about her life. It seemed that he had picked out salient elements and used them to make her relive her pain and move on. It hurt more than she had expected, but she felt it was all for the better. Now more than ever, she wished she were more educated and thus able to tie the different strands of her life together. She remembered confessions in the cupboard-like confessional. At the beginning, she really believed that the white priest was Jesus, and she quaked with holy terror, not daring to tell a single lie. But gradually it had struck her that if the priest was indeed Jesus of Nazareth, then he surely did not need to be told anything. She started telling him small lies and omitting little details. “Jesus” swallowed it hook, line and sinker! The terror went away, and she started smelling the man’s tobacco breath. From then on, she stopped saying prayers of contrition. The Vicar knew better. He guided his clients through the rituals. He is a Catholic, Kasawo thought; he must have fooled the priests himself. Send a thief to catch a thief, her primary school headmaster used to say.
His massive frame filled the doorway. He beckoned her to follow him to the cave, where she took the same long, cold bath. She had never shivered so in all her life. Her teeth rattled badly as she walked back to her room for the final installment of lashes. He administered them and turned her over. The cold hand of the wind pushed inside her and shook the very marrow of her bones. She was so cold that she started feeling a dull heat building inside her. She closed her eyes and succumbed to the convoluted meanderings of her mind. She was awakened by the fire of his latex-sheathed penetration. He rubbed the stretched membrane of her rejuvenating self with the hellfire of her worst pains. He reminded her of the professional brutality of bone-setters who broke badly set bones in order to correct the mistakes. Her mind worked on and off between bitten-back screams and tears as she tried to hold on. She thought of Pangaman, of her fear, hatred and even love of him. She thought of her father, of the parish priest who had beaten her, of the nun who had whipped her, and of Amin’s soldiers, and of her violators. Her face was wet with tears. He asked her if she was crying. She felt shame over it, but she could not lie to the ultimate confessor and admitted that she was. He laughed. She felt relieved.
Back at the cave, she was ordered to fill a bucket with water. He sprinkled herbs in it and ordered her to carry it on her head. This time they headed for the road. They stopped in the junction. She eyed the three arms of the road with trepidation. She prayed that it would remain empty, desolate, dead. He ordered her to strip and bathe while saying the following words: “I leave the world’s rapes here. I leave the world’s ill luck here. I leave every evil here. Let the winds carry it all to the ends of the earth.” He stood at a distance, and she could hear him mumbling. They walked toward the compound in silence. She was glad that part was over. Her body was still burning, but she felt calm. She did not care whether another seven lashes were awaiting her. She had broken a psychological barrier. She felt invincible, fearless, ready for anything.
At the door he stood aside and let her enter. He stood in the doorway and watched her shiver, the black cloth tight on her steaming body. He seemed wreathed in priestly isolation. “It is over, girl,” he said in a thick voice. He stood there as if waiting to be thanked. She found herself on her knees, thanking him as though she weren’t going to pay him.
The Kasawo that rose from her knees was a woman full of a fresh fire and a blazing, peppery zeal. She dominated all conversation during her visit to us. Aunt Lwandeka looked cowed by her. Kasawo was not my favorite political analyst, but I agreed with her that the departure of the Tanzanians was good for all parties. She swore that the exiled dictator Obote was about to return. This greatly disturbed me, for all along I had been holding that as an abstract possibility. Aunt Lwandeka did not like the news either. It made her sacrifices in fighting Amin look futile. She angrily responded with the view that a guerrilla war would break out as a result.
“Governments are there to fight guerrillas,” Kasawo said smugly. I kept thinking about those words long after her departure.
Within a few months, most roadblocks were gone and most Tanzanians were back home. A new army was being formed. The curfew now started at eleven o’clock and ended at five in the morning. There was much talk about elections, democracy and development: the magic trinity.
I was feeling inviolable once more. I had survived the dark days without a body scratch. I was going to the university to study law. I never bothered the few female liberators who were manning the last of the roadblocks. They did not seem to notice me either. I kept slipping past them as though by magic. Within three weeks they would be gone, I had heard on the news. Every other evening, I visited a friend, a fellow student who was living on his own. We enjoyed weighty discussions, especially about politics and women and power. Sometimes I took him a little liquor, which loosened his tongue, and he talked as if the world were coming to an end. We both felt that we could change the world. We talked as though we were in parliament or in some national forum where our words turned into law.