She kneels on her bed facing the horizontal window, staring
at the thousands of lights of the city. From her bed, on the 5th
floor of the old brown Mary Stuart Hall building known as “Box”, she also has
an excellent view of the city Kampala. Disorganised, but with a charm of its
own…. like a beautiful girl wearing expensive clothes but with absolutely no
sense of style or awareness of fashion trends. If she tried hard enough, she could
identify the buildings…the Gaddafi Mosque…the Cathedral at Rubaga…and is that
Worker’s house?
She realises now that she has never really taken the time to
appreciate this view. Except once, when on one of the little balconies on the
emergency staircase, she had been pushed against the rough wall and kissed
tenderly. They had watched the lights of Kampala together. Presently, she
closes her eyes and the boy who held and kissed her then comes to mind. His
face was dark as night, his skin smooth and clear. He had beautiful clear eyes
that belonged on a girl’s face, with impossibly long eyelashes framing them. She
smiles nostalgically, remembering the fun she had applying make up to his delicate
features while he slept. He slept so soundly that she always joked that he
could be carried to Sudan and only wake up from the scorching sun’s heat being
absorbed by his dark skin. That was another world, another time. She cannot
believe it was just 3 years back. Then she had been an impressionable teenager,
frightened by the big University.
She has grown so much since, and that maturity comes with an
acute awareness that she knows so little, has experienced so little. Still, she
is a little cynical, a little disillusioned. Nobody knows that. Some people see
some of the cynicism beneath her loud laugh, but they don’t really know. Nobody
knows that her dreams grow, only to be crushed. Nobody knows about the man who changed
her life only to disappear into the night, almost like he had never existed.
Nobody knows that she has been groping in the dark for a foothold when she had
expected to stroll through law school or perhaps even leap joyously through the
4 years.
She smiles. For the strangest reason, she cannot remember
why she is still kneeling on her bed, the lights out, staring out at the night
sky. She is aware of her roommate’s even breathing and soft snore, the sound of
feet shuffling through the corridor, the water boiling in the next room.
Another WhatsApp message comes through and the whistling sound is muffled by
the bedcovers. The vibrations through her thighs remind her that she is still
kneeling on her bed. Why is she kneeling?
She hears herself mutter a prayer.
“Hail Mary full of grace…”
So that’s why she is kneeling. She cannot remember when she last
went to mass or said a prayer; save for the Hail Mary’s she subconsciously says
whenever she is in a tight situation. She really cannot remember the last time
she went to mass. Not the crowded Sunday mass she has to attend in high heels
and an appropriately long dress, singing along to hymns she has sang all her
life in the large Cathedral. She longs instead for the quiet morning mass that
she often rushed to in flat shoes and jeans, going voluntarily, because she
needed to pray. She misses the kind of mass that inevitably reminds her of the
biting cold, because it is always so early in the morning; the mass where she
kneels down before the priest can come in, and really speaks to God as if He
were right next to her. She would like to receive communion because she feels
worthy, not because all her sisters have joined the line and she cannot bear to
stay alone on the pew.
She takes a few deep breaths, welcoming the strange sense of
peace that envelops her, hugging her like a long lost lover. She almost forgot what
tranquility feels like. She can barely remember what she was like before the
voices in her head.
“I refuse to believe in the cruel God of Israel, who is a
mass murderer.”
“God was created by man”
“I have called you by name. I have your picture in the palm
of My hand.
“My daughter! Pray!! The Devil is always watching and
waiting to take what is yours. You must pray! I pray for you but you must fight
with me!”
So she remains on her knees, staring out at the night sky,
until she feels a cramp develop in her left leg. Only then does she get under
the covers and touch herself until the gentle shudders have subsided. She pushes
the guilt that comes from the lustful thoughts to the back of her mind,
thinking instead about what she should wear to class tomorrow. She only knows
she fell asleep when her alarm goes off, 5 hours later.
