“I will not stop asking until the owner of
this underwear surfaces.” Bana Mulenga said. She kicked it out of the main door
and yet she couldn’t kick it off the veranda. She hated seeing it but she
wanted to know. The red, male, briefs appeared a week ago. The workers swept
the entire house and left it behind for her to see. First instinct was to throw
it away but everyone in the village knew of how witches used strategically
placed underwear to make women barren. Bana Mulenga knew that to get rid of it
she would have to know where it came from.
“I am leaving it here, the owner of the
underwear must surface before I do something strange!” She said and stormed
back into the house to continue her interrogations.
In a corner of the yard Mulenga was
pretending to be busy while waiting for her mother to go back into the house.
Nobody was in sight, the workers were already on the way to the field. Mulenga
picked up the underwear and stuffed it in her shirt and started walking fast
towards the garbage pit. The way the underwear sat in her shirt made her look
like she had one full breast next to her small pointy one. Her breasts had just
come in, they were sore and the nipples were tender. They made her feel ashamed
and no matter what she did she couldn’t stop them from poking through any shirt
she wore. At school Mulenga wore a thick sweater, always. At home she crossed
her arms or walked really fast hoping nobody noticed her pointy nipples. It was
becoming too hot to wear a sweater so she chose to just sit by herself.
The pit was full and ready to be cleared
and burnt so she knew her small fire would go unnoticed once the entire pit was
burning. Mulenga reached into her shirt and pulled out the red underwear, she
put it at the corner of the pit and then put dry twigs and grass on top of it.
It only took one matchstick to start a slow but steady flame. As the fire
spread and finally started burning the red fabric Mulenga started to feel her
burden lighten. She had never been good at lies or secrets. When she was five,
she stole meat from the pot and it burnt her tongue. The pain made it hard for
her to eat anything. Her mother didn’t notice that the meat was gone but she
noticed that Mulenga wasn’t eating. She checked her mouth and saw the peeling
skin. Mulenga confessed her crime easily. It was then that she learned that bad
actions attracted bad luck and when bad luck came, it was deserved. From that
point onwards Mulenga never told lies, stole or kept secrets from her mother.
Watching the underwear burn was like
watching her big secret cease to exist. Mulenga told herself it was the last
time to remember the smell of unrefined tobacco that wafted in the air whenever
he was around. All week she was haunted by the weight on top of her and the
pressure that followed excruciating pain inside her. All the sensations were
strange, all the actions were things she had never seen or felt before. Mulenga
was curious and confused. It was his movements that told her what he was doing.
She saw the dogs in the yard and the goats in the paddock do it. The male
climbed the female and moved up and down until his body had a seizure and he
was done. Mulenga knew that was how new animals were created. She knew she
didn’t want to create a baby but it was too late. He was already moving up and
down. She wanted him to stop but he said it would start feeling good. He was
moaning and moving faster saying she made him happy. Mulenga knew it was only a
matter of time until he had a seizure. The door creaked and he scampered off
her. He put on his clothes in a hurry and the look he gave her when he rushed
out of the door told her all she needed to know. What they had done was a
secret. Before, he was loving and took off his clothes like they were on fire, like
having them on was an almost painful disturbance. He crawled into her bed and
said they would hold each other naked, because that is what people did when
they loved each other. What he left behind wasn’t love, it was shameful and
disgusting.
Mulenga wanted to cry and tell her mother
but it was a secret so she forced herself to forget. When the underwear was
discovered time stood still. Mulenga tried so hard to forget and yet there was
evidence of her secret. Thankfully she was never asked, obviously the red male
underwear wasn’t hers. Time was on slow motion and nobody was ignoring the red
underwear. Mulenga needed to get rid of it so that she could forget. The flames
swallowed it up and started to burn the rest of the pit. Mulenga paced around
composing a story to explain why she was taking up the responsibility of
burning the pit. When she was satisfied with her story she walked away from the
pit, looking back once to make sure everything was on fire.
She found her mother on the veranda with
her hands on her hips looking right at her like she knew Mulenga would appear
in that very moment.
“Mulenga, the chilli has dried up. And
everyone knows that you are the only one who eats chilli. Is there something
you need to tell me?” Bana Mulenga said.
Mulenga felt dizzy. From one problem,
straight into another. This was the bad luck that followed secrets. Everyone
knew that when someone was unclean and they touched a chilli plant, it dried
up. There was no excuse that she could come up with on the spot. Sudden grief
caught her and she started to sob. Maybe it was time to look her mother in the
eye and tell the truth, the whole truth.
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