Photograph by Adrian McDonald Photography
PART I
We were paraded in the school staffroom, about 17 of us, from different classes. Miriam was singled out, served 26 lashes of the cane and told to identify her “lovers”. Me, I was singled out even further from the rest and identified as her “best friend” and confidant, and was told that if I kept quiet about anything I knew, I would be expelled from the school too.
Back then when we were teens, she had tried to explain to me something, the enormity of which I did not perceive at the time. She was lesbian, she said. It was a thing, she said.
“It’s like how you have a crush on a boy- but this time, you have it on a girl,” she explained.
I understood it as having a lot of friends who were girls and of those, she had many. She was quite popular.
I was terrified of being expelled, so I told the teachers everything. It was my testimony that sent her packing.
She moved to another school and a month later, I received a letter from her in which she said that she was not angry with me but that I had just made it difficult for her to trust anybody again.
“You’re the only person I ever told how I feel,” she wrote. “I feel broken, especially because you really understood me so well. All you had to do was say you knew nothing. But I understand that you were scared.”
I felt bad. Really, really bad.
I wrote her back a couple of times asking her to forgive me but I did not get any replies. I never heard from her again.
So when she sent me a message via facebook some time last week, I was shocked. When I checked her profile, I saw that she was married, and had two lovely daughters who looked like her. Besides looking a little plump, she had hardly changed. Yes, that was Miriam.
We went back and forth chatting a bit here and a bit there about life. We talked a lot about a lot of stuff and she was still as charming, calm and passionate as I had known her to be. I told her I was really sorry about that time in highschool and she sent a long line of laughing emojis.
“I’m really sorry that I did not defend you, that time.”
“No, it’s okay, do not worry about it. That’s a long time ago, come on.”
I was thus at ease and comfortable – even eager, when she asked us to meet in one of the malls in Kampala.
PART II
I arrived at the mall a few minutes past 6pm, right about the time when a remnant of the sun was slowly sliding into the covers of the imminent night. Even though the air outside of the mall smelled fresh and clean, it was a bit cold. The ground was also still wet from the day’s heavy downpour and was thus a bit uncomfortable.
The inside was much kinder, swaddling me in its ambient warmth and meeting my nose with the aromas of luxurious foods. I identified Miriam in one of the restaurants in the mall by her light skin and big and bouncy afro-styled hair. Her face was radiant, reflecting the luminescence of the golden light from the restaurant’s chandeliers. She too recognized me almost immediately as I walked in, and her face beamed as she smiled, rising up and motioning to me with a gesture of her hand to go over to where she was. I was both excited and nervous as I walked to the table she was seated at.
When I reached her, she exclaimed my name and reached out to me for a hug, which I happily returned. The burst of a musky, sweet smelling perfume that hit my nose confirmed my suspicions about her – that she was rich. In that moment, the awkwardness of our unceremonious parting from over fourteen years ago suddenly evaporated. We each took our seats opposite each other, happier than our own words were letting on. It was written all over both our faces that we were happy to see each other.
“You hardly changed at all! You look beautiful!” She exclaimed.
“Well, you look stunning, yourself!” I replied.
This was followed by nervous but genuine laughter. We talked about high school; prom, teachers, our favorite subjects, university and work. We did not have anything heavy. Just ice cream. Me, vanilla and chocolate. Her, Vanilla and pistachio. Rich people stuff, I thought.
“Do you still write?” She asked, suddenly.
“Hahaha…yes, I still write. One of the few things that makes me really happy” I said.
“So, what do you write about?”
“A lot of stuff. People, Events, Opinions. All of that.” I took a scoop of my ice cream. “I don’t know though, if I’m getting better or worse at it. Lately I want to get my hands dirty. You know, write about very uncomfortable topics and themes: Drugs, sex, abortions…”
I paused and looked at her before continuing, “Same-sex relationships, such… Taboos, basically.”
“Hm…”
“Yeah…Sometimes my Christian beliefs get in the way but I find it necessary to talk about these things. Haven’t yet figured out how to get around that. I hope I can.”
“Okay, that’s good. That’s good actually. I love it!”
“Thank you” I replied.
We both went about eating our ice cream quietly until the silence started to feel awkward. I became anxious, wondering if perhaps I had said something wrong.
So I tried to move past the uncomfortable silence, blurting out without repose, “How are your kids?”
“My kids? What kids?” She asked, with a quizzical expression on her face.
“Your kids. The ones in your Facebook photos.”
Her face suddenly turned grave. “Those are not my kids,” she said.
PART III
She gave me the most bizarre answer to the question of the babies, but that was nothing compared to the barrage of thoughts that hit my mind from the revelations I had got from that single meeting. I left the restaurant with my mind reeling from too many questions.
Not only that, on my way home in the Uber, I could not stop thinking about something that had happened while we were at the restaurant.
A waitress came to pick up the ice cream cups and I could swear I saw Miriam make a subtle pass at her with a wink of her left eye. The waitress had only expressed mild irritation as one might, at a mistakenly over-stepped boundary. Clearly she had not thought much about it because she was polite when she returned with the bill.
“Miriam, you still like women…” I said.
She smiled mischievously and asked me if it offends me.
My mouth went dry.
From the time I asked about her daughters, she sat still in her seat, looking past my face to beyond it, as if communing with a spirit that only she could see. She stared into space like I was not there. I started to get anxious, with my hands suddenly starting to feel misplaced on my body. I reached out for the ice cream cup and started to awkwardly scrape its bottom for the last bits of ice cream there, to calm my nerves.
Suddenly, she said: “Frozen eggs.”
“What?” I asked, not sure I had heard what I had heard.
“Who freezes eggs? Anna, do you know anyone who has used frozen eggs to get children?”
“No” I said with a confused frown on my brow.
“Exactly, it is wild. Like a movie.”
There was an uncomfortably long silence.
Now I like to think that I have values, that I do not like to snoop around or know things that are none of my business, but I really wanted to get “the tea” like it is called nowadays. I was rather disappointed in myself at how eager I was to get it.
“So, whose kids…?” I began to ask, and before I could finish my question, she cut me short.
“They’re my sister’s children,” she said. “She bore them. But the eggs were mine.”
“Oh!” I gasped, before quickly composing myself and feigning indifference.
“Frozen eggs,” she repeated and then it sank.
Before I could pick up my jaw from the floor, she said, “My sister- she had a lot of money but could not have her own children. Her money could not even save her from COVID. We buried her in August last year.”
“Oh, Miriam, I am so sorry for your loss!”
She continued, “Wild, I know. Very, very wild. But she was rich, had been living and working in Sweden for about 7 years. So I took over her girls and her husband. Sven –that’s his name- he is sympathetic with me. He understands me. Said we can keep up the appearance of being married. That way I will be freer to carry a relationship with my partner.”
My jaw dropped again.
“Oh, wow…Miriam” I said; and then I had nothing more to say anymore.
There was too much information coming in at the same time and I was sincerely overwhelmed. I wondered why she was telling me, technically a stranger, all of this and only a few hours into our first meet.
We both left the restaurant at 8pm. She told me that her car had been parked in the parking lot. My Uber arrived as we were parting with hugs and that is how I was not able to see the kind of car she drove.
PART IV
“It was really nice catching up,” She said.
I was not so sure if that was the same for me. I rode in the Uber back to my home in Najjera, with more questions on my mind than I had gone with to the mall. That is how I knew that I would be meeting Miriam again soon. The questions were too many and me, I was dying for answers.
My Uber picked me from Miriam’s house in Kololo at 8:30pm. Before it arrived, I asked Miriam to come with me outside her gate where I asked her the question that has always been on my mind ever since we reconnected three weeks ago.
“Are you happy, Miriam?”
Then I asked her if, when I tell the story of how I had bumped into her and her partner stealthily smooching in the bathroom, I should also tell about the clit rings.
She laughed so loud I could not help laughing back.
“Seriously, should I tell them? Should I include it in the story?” I asked
“Yes, you can include it, if it will make a great story.” She replied, choking on laughter. “You write well, by the way.”
“Thank you! And fine, I’ll tell them.”
See, I was at Miriam’s house last Saturday and she introduced me to her partner Gigi -a surprisingly sweet and gentle young woman in her mid-twenties if you compared her to her gruff outer look of ripped shorts, tattooed thighs, large, colorfully beaded dreadlocks and rings everywhere. Literally. She had rings on her earlobes, nose, nasal septum, lower lip, eyebrows, and even, as I later found out, on her clit -but we will come to this later. She had come up in our conversation about her ‘husband’ Sven and the two girls. She is Haitian.
Miriam told me that Sven and the girls were back in Sweden, having been caught up in the COVID-19 related restrictions against international travel but would be returning early June for a short visit. They would also be making some adjustments in their living arrangements because:
“I found someone,” she had said with a smile and a lit up face.
An hour later, a monstrous V8 pulled into the driveway and that’s when I got introduced to Gigi. She joined us on the patio where she found Miriam and I talking.
She had a happy, giggly and very friendly face at which I could not resist smiling back.
“Anna?” Gigi asked, holding out her light-skinned, tattoo-spangled right arm to me while she cradled a spoiled-looking but adorable Maltese in her left arm.
“Yes, Anna.” I extended by hand to greet her. Her hands were as slim, smooth and soft as I imagine Amanda Gorman’s hands to be.
“I’m Georgina, but I go by ‘Gigi’ everywhere. And this is Sultan. The only man around here,” she said while roughly stroking his fur before kissing him between the eyes. We all laughed at the implication.
Forget rich people who make you feel like crap. Miriam made me feel so rich and so at ease at her house, that during lunch and dinner, I miraculously found myself using all the cutlery properly; knife, fork and all- even a soup spoon. Where I come from, you pour the soup in a circle over the rice or even just slurp it into your mouth from the bowl –not at Miriam’s. The ambience of her sprawling mansion in Kololo could not let me. Thankfully, my inner wealthy self, the one that posts posh social media photographs, rose to the occasion and delivered. Turns out it was not even necessary.
Gigi and Miriam were the most humble people you could ever meet and it was not long before we were all lost in conversation, making jokes and just being silly. What should have been a lazy Saturday meet over lunch went well into the evening and I ended up having dinner there as well.
“What about you, Anna?” Gigi suddenly asked, turning to me at dinner. “Do you have someone?”
“Ha-ha. Me? No…”
“Why not? You’re a beautiful woman and very smart.” She paused and then added: “I would date you.” Before laughing at my surprised face. Miriam joined her in her mirth.
“Wouldn’t you date Anna, Miriam?”
“Oh, I sure would! Have you seen her eyes?” They continued to tease me.
“Oh, no. no…” I laughed in nervous protest. “No…Miram. Gigi. No”
“Seriously, though, what is it?” Miriam asked. Both she and Gigi looked at me, waiting for an answer.
I sighed.
“Look, I’ve dated. It did not work. Started dating late. Two break-ups later, and here I am.”
“Sorry, about that. But hey, if guys are messing you up, you could just date a girl.”
“No, Gigi. I’m okay. I’m really fine. I like guys. Men. Just a good man. A God-fearing man is what I’m looking for, really. None has asked me out yet, so I cannot force it.”
“They probably think you’re dating.” Miriam said.
“Yes, there’s that too.”
“But hey, we’re still hopeful, no?” Gigi asked loudly.
“Yes, we are. We are hopeful.” We all laughed.
It was 7:30 pm when Miriam and I went outside of her house to talk a little more.
“I’ll leave you guys for a while,” Gigi had said.
“Thank you love, only an hour, and I’ll be back.”
I asked Miriam, as we walked towards the gate, about the plan I had heard Gigi and herself discuss; something about moving to Sweden in the wake of the sexual offenses bill that was being discussed in parliament.
“The ignorance is appalling,” she said. “You would not believe the number of people being hurt by this. They’re everywhere. Many even right under your nose on your Facebook; even your family.”
“Miriam, some people might say it is not natural…”
“What do you mean it’s not natural? I just do not feel attracted to men. It is that simple. I could not explain it any more than that.”
I did not want to take this discussion any further.
“Are you happy, Miriam? Like, really, really happy? I mean I have seen you, and how you and Gigi behave lovingly towards each other, I even envy you guys somewhat- but are you happy?”
“I am happy, Anna.”
“So, when will you be relocating to Sweden?”
“When Sven comes back, we’ll work out how to sell off or rent this house, then we’ll move.”
To be honest, I still do not understand what I saw, but I saw it myself; there they were, two women sneaking up on each other’s backs and whispering things to each other, at which they both laughed. They hugged too long, stared into each other’s too long, and generally played lovingly much. They looked strangely happy. It was messing with my mind. And that, even before the clit rings.
Yesterday, I found a text on my phone in which she indicated that she was “happy I got to share my story with you.”
When I asked her why she shared her story with me in the first place, she said that she trusts me. “You seem to me to be that kind of person who would not judge me,” she said.
