Then She Was Born

PART ONE

1.

The mother’s body broke open to make way for the baby’s entry into the world. Wild cries traveled beyond the sheet-metal door of the mud hut and into the crowded courtyard on Tanzania’s flat scrap of an island. Ukerewe was a jubilant explosion of greens—from apple to emerald—framed by the rich blue of Lake Victoria.

Sefu—the father of the newborn—looked beyond the virile, though softening, sun. He considered the great bounty, the brawny progeny it had produced. That sun, too, would rest for the night. He imagined his son being born before the Spirits’ sun sunk into the vast water. He thought of how everything was as it should be. It was almost sunset, and the cool air soaked in reddish light from the day’s final rays. Soon, too, our golden crown will shine, our own sliver of the starry canopy, thought Sefu as he waited outside the hut.

More time had passed and the sheet-metal door remained firmly shut. It was the beginning of the rainy season so the weather was unstable and capricious. Sefu smelled the unmistakable scent of rain. He sensed that the darkness of night’s first hours, assisted by monsoon winds, would coax heavy clusters of cloud that had been formed from the Indian Ocean. Water will be dumped onto the land by the rise of the next sun, he thought.

At last, the door to the hut opened. A woman gestured to Sefu. He could now enter. The courtyard grew quiet. He crossed the threshold, and the smile he’d worn since hearing the child’s birth cries vanished.

He saw his newborn asleep on a bundle of rags in the corner of the room. His eyes opened wide, and he grabbed his hair with both hands. This cannot be, he told himself. His body stiffened as the tiny creature hypnotized him. He attempted to summon his finger to touch its belly, hoping this thing before him was but a figment of his imagination. Then, with its subhuman powers, it turned him to stone. She was a curse, a judgment. He repeated to himself the name of what she was, denying it at the same time.

The air in the hut was drenched in deadly silence. Only Sefu’s breathing could be heard, and its rasp increased as rage filled him.

How could I have begot such a thing? he asked himself. He wondered if evil spirits possessed him while he had coupled with Juma. Or maybe this demonic being is the fruit of another man’s seed? That must be it, he affirmed to himself. His wife had to have betrayed him and unleashed a curse by the Spirits of the Lake. His body could not have made that.

It has to die, declared Sefu. Without so much as a glance at Juma, the mother of the phantom, he turned and left the hut.

Lying on her pallet, covered in brilliant-colored fabrics, her howls numbed by the murmurs of surrounding women, Juma registered this birth and her death as one and the same. She thought of how, in past seasons, she had miscarried two times, followed by boundless hemorrhaging that seemed to drain her soul and body. When she was with child this time, in her mind’s eye, Juma had seen the fetus gripping her womb with its tiny fingers, stubborn and determined.

She remembered when news of the conception had spread across the island like wildfire over dry grass. She saw the streams and lake rejoicing and swelling beyond their banks. The trees had generated hearty sprouts, giving shape to longer shadows. The sun’s light was clear and golden across the crimson earth. As her belly burgeoned, she trod the grass that grew greener and denser. She’d heard birds sing and caw louder than ever. The rain fell with the violence of gunshots. All of nature rejoiced with her, celebrating her baby’s tenacity and perseverance. Her child would live. Juma knew that this time she would hold a crying infant in her aching arms.

And so she had. Though as she looked at what her body produced, she felt only scorn and disgust.

Juma was unable to explain what had gone wrong. She had diligently followed every directive given to her by the women of the clan. To ingratiate herself with the Spirits of the Lake, she had avoided arguments and malicious gossip. She had refrained from having relations with her husband during the last months of the pregnancy. She had avoided carrying water from the spring so that her child would not be born with water on its brain. And she had been faithful to Sefu—in body and spirit—a loving and devoted wife.

Yet she had borne this monstrosity.

If Juma had not felt it emerge from her own body—seen with her own eyes—she would have believed it came from another woman, from another clan, a wicked woman who deserved such a thing.

She seized the newborn with both hands and held it out to the midwife to calm its cries. The older woman shook her head; she would not touch this cursed nobody. Juma squinted at Nkamba—her mother-in-law, more ancient than even the midwife and shaped as a crooked shrub. She saw Nkamba’s fear, and Juma wanted even more to annihilate the voice of that which came from her own flesh. In a fit of fury, she pressed the end of the swaddling cloth against its face. No one would blame her. She felt silent support from the ring of women encircling her and her offspring. However, the maternal instinct was stronger than Juma and—even though reason prodded her and she did want the child gone—she felt the cloth slip from her grip. She could not kill her own, however wretched it was. She drew the child to her left breast and felt it latch on and suckle with vigor. She recognized the lusty will of the thing that had inhabited her womb. Juma winced at the contact. From the corner of her eye, she scrutinized the tiny creature on her nipple, its pale skin against the dark flesh of her breast. It has happened again, she thought. I’ve given birth to death. A white thing. If it lives, my husband will leave me.

Juma pried the infant from her breast and set it on a bundle of rags in the corner of the room, farthest from the bed. A sweet scent radiated from the child, and it bayed like a homely pup. Overcome by fatigue and pain, Juma collapsed onto her palm-leaf bed, embraced by despair. Finally, she burst into a convulsive cry, clutching the bedding in her fists. That distant corner of the room was, for her, the forest where it, the nobody, would evanesce. The women surrounded her as Nkamba moved closer to the newborn, and one of them cradled Juma’s clutched hands, murmuring soothing words as a woman had when she had miscarried.

Then Yunis, her dearest friend and cousin of Sefu said, Juma, it is time to bring in your husband.

Out of the stillness that followed Sefu’s pronouncement and departure, Nkamba watched a stream of women trickle into the hut. Their voices trampled each other, echoing like the squawks of hungry crows in the cramped space.

It’ll have red eyes like the devil.

"It’s a zeru zeru[1] with witchy, magical powers."

Disaster will move into our village.

Contagious hardship will follow in its wake.

Listen: Before it’s too late, leave it in the forest.

Juma, in a stupor, stared at the emptiness in front of her as the baby bellowed by the mud wall.

Nkamba observed the scene and her forsaken mjukuu[2]. From the moment she helped deliver her granddaughter, she had closed herself inside a remnant of silence, hypnotized with awe by the baby’s indomitable spirit. Little by little, nevertheless, the comments of the women wormed their way into her heart like black mamba venom, reawakening a poisonous memory from tens of rainy seasons before. Nkamba’s vision blurred; she lost her balance and dropped onto a stool.

Two women noticed her collapse and hastened to help her, flapping the hems of their skirts to yield a breeze on her brow, to give her much-needed air. When Nkamba revived, she went straight to her granddaughter and nestled her against her bosom. The others watched in shocked silence.

Nkamba understood what the clanswomen wanted her to do, expected her to do. She stared at the infant whose face softened and cheeks puffed as she rocked her to the rhythm of her heart. She thought of what had happened so long ago when she was a woman as young as Juma, and Nkamba decided the exact opposite would be this baby’s destiny. She was disappointed by her son’s cruelty toward one so helpless. She wondered how he would have treated his older sister. Nkamba slowly wrapped her mjukuu in a soft rag, which had been submerged in sweet grass to protect the baby’s delicate skin.

Sefu hadn’t yet been born when the event occurred that would change Nkamba’s life forever; thus, he was unaware of her secret. And he was unaware of her oath to the Spirits when her only daughter was taken from her. One of her callous hands covered her belly; a rush of shame surged, and, immediately thereafter, an incredible strength purified her mind and heart. The Spirits of the Lake were bestowing Nkamba with the courage she needed to ask her son to spare the child. Or, at least, to convince him to call on the herd to spare her. With the tiny thing pressed to her chest, protected by a soft cloth, she left the hut under the gaze of the women, their necks craning to follow her movements.

A birth is an event that brings together the entire community. Villagers, clan members, and strangers alike congregated singly and in clusters around the edges of the giant baobab, not far from Sefu’s hut. A thick layer of cloud cover shrouded any hint of star or moonlight, and a deep, dead cavernous darkness hid the agitation that spread across the community from the affliction that had been brought into their sphere.

Nkamba spotted Sefu speaking with Kondo, the village chief, who had been Nkamba’s friend from when she was a girl and belonged to the same clan as her husband, Kheri. If only Kheri had been home at the birth of their daughter, Nkamba’s life would have been different. All of their lives would have been very different, she was certain, and Sefu would have an unshakable love for his newborn. Zuberi, the shaman or, rather, the witch doctor, with his darting teeny eyes, sidled up to Sefu and Kondo, adding a poisonous word, Nkamba was sure. He seemed to be always collecting information that he might store in sundry glass jars with acrid solutions or in wooden boxes. With her head held high, the old woman—baby soundly asleep and hidden from curious and hateful eyes—foisted herself near the triumvirate. Behind her son’s shoulder, she touched his arm as she would have, so long ago, when she had been taller than he who was now such a colossal figure.

Turn to face me, Sefu, she said.

Her son spun around, embarrassed by her public boldness.

Give her one chance, said the old woman in a stoic whisper. If you are the man who Kheri and I raised, the man who lovingly lowered his father into the earth and led him to his afterlife, you will not abandon this innocent baby girl in the forest. Nkamba felt the Spirits rise up her spine as she spoke.

Sefu was silent, examining his mother’s tired yet animated face.

Follow the example of our neighbors, the Masai, she continued, holding his gaze. Tomorrow, at dawn, place the baby on the ground in front of the gate where the community herd is kept. Let the beasts decide her fate. If the cattle trample her to death as they leave their pen, that is her destiny; if she survives, I will raise her.

Sefu took his eyes off his mother. He let them travel toward the treetops. Then they veered down to Kondo and Zuberi, who were silent during Nkamba’s appeal. Finally, he gazed into the crowd that had gathered and were meandering all the way from the hut to the sprawling tree. Sefu looked to the elders of the clan—Kondo and Zuberi—as though for a solution. Kondo’s placid expression was one quite familiar to Nkamba, while Zuberi appeared anything but serene. The deep crease between Zuberi’s eyes twitched as though, Nkamba thought, in his mind he was concocting a muddy potion from the chaos of the situation.

Finally Sefu spoke: This evil spirit cannot be my daughter. He turned his back to his mother and continued his conversation with the elders of the clan.

But she is. Nkamba held up the child in front of him, forcing him to look at her. The baby hiccupped, inhaling too much air. First she is the daughter of God and the Spirits of the Lake. Like every child is. And after that, she is your daughter.

The elderly woman had doubts about allowing a herd of cattle to decide the fate of the newborn, but that custom was her granddaughter’s only alternative to imminent death in the forest, so Nkamba grabbed it. Like everyone in her tribe, she believed in the Spirits of the Lake. Those Spirits asserted that a zeru zeru be left to perish in the heart of the forest. She also believed, though, in the words of Father Andrew who, during Sunday Mass, spoke of a God who loved all living things indiscriminately. Nkamba saw God’s love flow through this angelic soul that she cradled in her arms, and Father Andrew’s God wanted the baby to live.

I will consider it, concluded Sefu.

A murmur of incredulity snaked its way among the villagers. Each of them had something to say, and soon voices rose, not in conversation but as individual threads that wove into the voice of the land.

The birth of a white shadow is a bad sign, declared a young fisherman on the fringes of the crowd.

"Zeru zerus must be left in the forest from the moment of birth as an offering to the Spirits."

That is how it has always been. She has to die alone, far from the community.

The entire population benefits when she is sacrificed to the Spirits—wealth and riches, added an elderly man, waving his staff in the air.

Why is she so different? asked a boy whose legs were so long and thin he looked like a gazelle. He was in that in-between age when childhood gives way to adolescence.

It’s obvious, said one adult. So that she who is sacrificed for the well-being of the community can be easily recognized among the newborns. Though traditional sacrifice should be avoided. If the police find out, they’ll arrest us.

Well, then, what do we do? asked the boy.

"We protect the father who allows the zeru zeru to die in the forest or who poisons it."

The boy nodded with gravity.

We have a lot of problems, muttered a snaggletooth fisherman in an I ♥ NY T-shirt. "We haven’t caught many fish lately, and the rice and cassava harvests are increasingly scarce. A limb of a zeru zeru woven into a net will make it impossible for fish to hide." Nkamba was aware that the fisherman had many worries of late. His fifth child had been recently born, and the family was always short of food, keeping him awake with worry at night, his wife had told her.

If that thing is allowed to live, we’ll have even worse luck. Let’s get it the second it’s dead so we can make amulets.

While it’s still alive! cried one of the elders. "Everyone knows an embulamaro[3] vanishes at death."

A tall man, thin like a brittle branch and with pinhole eyes, approached the group. He had been standing on the sidelines up until then, silent and preoccupied.

Listen to me! he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. You know if we can recover it while it’s still living, the disgrace of its birth will transform into bounty, bringing us wealth and good fortune. Through its body, gold will rise! And when it’s old enough, our village will have our own cure for AIDS.

Several of the men nodded, others whispered, and a growing hum emanated around the baobab.

Sefu gazed at the ground, his left eye dominated by a nervous twitch. Though Sefu was of large stature, some part of him was always moving, like a boat being bounced on the lake when the waters were choppy.

Zuberi seemed to take in that the new father had lost his bearings. He looked to the village chief and capitalized on Kondo’s inertia by grasping Sefu’s hands, snaring his eyes and attention. Like the tall thin man, Zuberi saw an opportunity staring him in the face. Let the Spirits of the Lake decide through the beasts.

The baby’s father inhaled with resignation. After the shaman had spoken, he had to obey.

One of the clansmen crowding around the tree also let out an expression of irritation when he heard Zuberi had decided to abide by the old woman’s request.

Nkamba was amazed that Zuberi, not Kondo, had taken her side. One never knows through whom the Spirits will speak, she thought, and that the words came from Zuberi, a self-important dolt, only reinforces that the Spirits of the Lake are protecting my mjukuu. Swaddling the baby, Nkamba quickly withdrew from the crowd and returned to the hut.

As she opened the sheet-metal door, Nkamba ordered the loiterers out, protecting the babe in her arms.

The stream of women left without saying a word. One of them, however, the daughter of Nkamba’s sister and a longtime friend of Juma, stayed behind.

2.

Since Yunis was of childbearing age, it was possible the taint of the birth would cling to her, curse her own future children. To protect her progeny, she knew she had to follow tradition. Yet, since the time she and Juma were children, the two had been inseparable, together taking the sheep and goats to graze. Not having a sister, Yunis took Juma as hers. Though they were born in different rainy seasons, they seemed to have a common destiny, at least until nine months before. As girls, they learned from Yunis’s mother—side by side—how to sew and mend clothing. They both grew to be tailors. When they married, they shared the dream of having a home full of children. Then Juma had conceived but Yunis had not. When Juma’s first pains came and she was certain this one would be born, Yunis felt like a dry stream. Why can’t I have children? she had cried as she watched her friend’s belly grow, repeating the whine to herself while attending the birth.

When she saw that the creature was not a baby but a zeru zeru, Yunis felt dismay and relief. Certainly it was better to wait many rainy seasons before conceiving, she told herself, than to give birth to a disgrace.

As a young woman of the clan, she had to follow the custom to ward off a similar disaster from striking her. However, a sense of guilt and fear of offending Juma and harming their friendship made her hesitant to go through with it.

The last of her qualms were brushed aside when one of the old women of the clan said before stepping out of the hut, You have to do it. You belong to Sefu’s clan. The spell will latch onto you all the more.

Juma will understand, Yunis told herself. This is how it’s always been done. Juma would not want me to suffer the same disgrace.

She stared at her friend’s belly in silence. Then she sipped some water to rinse her mouth, and she began: "Wretched zeru zeru." She spat with force at Juma, aiming directly for her navel with the intent of poisoning the root of the evil. She tilted back her head and spat a second time and then a third, as though she were releasing a scream of pain. And she continued to spit until she had no more saliva. Then she left the room.

Nkamba spent the night praying to the Spirits of the Lake and to Father Andrew’s God—the God known as both the beginning and the end, the God with power over every human being.

"You give and take away, You create and destroy. Mungu, Mulungu, Ruwa, and Ishwaga,[4] Creator of the universe, of man, of woman, of the trees, the mountains, rivers, lakes, and animals, the rain and the dawn, Jesus Christ our savior. Every element is Your representative on Earth and reflects Your face. If something does not go well, it is because You are angry with man; every event occurs because You—Mungu—desire it. You were yesterday, You are today, and You will be tomorrow. You are pure, infallible, and wise."

Thus, Nkamba prayed. Thus, Nkamba reminded the Spirits of the Lake of her long-ago oath. The baby, however, cried and cried in her grandmother’s arms before finally falling asleep, exhausted and hungry.

In the dark of night the old woman, crept to the pen where the cattle were kept, each one known to her by name. She stayed there only long enough to collect some urine from a cow to dampen a rag.

This way you will recognize her as one of your own and do her no harm, Nkamba whispered, perhaps to convince herself.

The sun shimmered pink on the eastern horizon the next morning. Nkamba, in her house, pinched the baby’s arm fiercely and released the flesh just before damaging it. She wanted to make her scream. The infant needed to be heard—and heard well—by the animals in the pen. Nkamba said another prayer, and then wrapped the baby in the damp rag and left to take her granddaughter to the ritual that would determine all of their fates.

3.

In the presence of the head of the village, along with the witch doctor, members of the tribe, and others who had gathered to witness the event, Nkamba set the yelling bundle on the ground, right in front of the pen’s gate. She asked her son if she could be the one to open it. After a nod, Sefu waited, a motionless ebony statue against a gray sky that threatened rain. Most of the villagers hoped to see the hooves of the milk cows trample the newborn and, thus, ward off the curse that risked destroying their island world.

Nkamba observed her son out of the corner of her eye. If the baby was trampled, she would mourn for Sefu as well as for her grandchild. The evil that lived in her boy and allowed him to let his daughter die would condemn him to the same destiny that Nkamba had suffered. Kheri would have behaved differently, she told herself. She remembered the day he returned from Mwanza at the beginning of the long rains, all those years ago. When he had heard what had happened in his absence, he held Nkamba all night long, and together they cried and mourned and prayed.

She opened the gate.

The beasts bellowed and moaned and crowded the pen’s entryway. They were restless and impatient to free themselves from the enclosure.

The first cow trod forward with uncertain steps. The animal lowered its muzzle toward the infant, obstructing the others behind it. It sniffed at the bundle and stepped over it. The second and then the third cow distinguished the presence of a living thing on the ground and sidestepped it too.

The pressure of the herd behind the few beasts that were loose began to build. They bellowed more and bucked, causing a frenzy as they jostled through the gate. The stench and the dust generated by the herd obscured the infant. Many hooves pounded the earth, one landing violently on the bundle. Nkamba held her breath; she had done all she could. The rest of the villagers were straining to see signs of life in the small bundle that the cattle had now passed. The din of the cows receded. In the distance, a crack of thunder sounded. A silence from the crowd of spectators could be felt by Nkamba.

Then, out of the hush, an acute and distressing cry from the tiny creature issued forth. A small white arm broke free and waved in the air.

Nkamba felt her heart do a flip. She was alive! Her granddaughter had survived certain death on her first day of life. The old woman looked at Sefu. Her son nodded, and she rushed to pick up her grandchild.

The baby cried and thrashed about. Nkamba held her tight, rocking her in the way a shell and its mollusk are moved by the rhythm of waves on the lake. The newborn had escaped her first threat, though Nkamba knew the dangers of life would never be over for her.

What will become of you when I go to your grandfather? she whispered.

The baby quieted. The older woman extended her mjukuu toward her son, presenting him with the gift of a small white body with its sparse, curly blond hair. Nkamba’s tight-lipped smile transformed her eyes into two slits while her arthritic hands trembled under the slight weight of her naked granddaughter wrapped in a rag. It began to rain, and the raindrops released the sour smell of urine from the swaddling cloth. The sound of boughs and branches shaking in the wind shrouded the buzz of the villagers’ pronouncements. The restless herd moved on, moaning, oblivious to their part in the drama.

Sefu looked to the side, in search of the head of the community who, in turn, locked eyes with the witch doctor.

Under the pounding raindrops, the baby had begun to whine again. The newborn’s father waited for the pronouncement of the leaders of the clan. Kondo and Zuberi took their time. Finally the shaman tilted his head forward, ever so slightly, and the head of the village responded in kind. Nkamba inhaled deeply. For the shaman it was clear the Spirits of the Lake had spoken through the beasts. Sefu understood that it was their will that the zeru zeru live.

Looking at his mother, without so much as grazing the baby with his eyes, Sefu said, May your will, as well as that of the Spirits of the Lake, and my word be done. It lives. However, it will remain unnamed and will not belong to my clan, and from this day forward, it shall live with you. As for me, I leave this house and shall return to live with my first wife and children.

Juma stared at the ground as her husband spoke. He had made it clear to her that he would never forgive what he considered her impure betrayal that led to the birth of the curse.

The racket of rain on sheet-metal roofs echoed the downpour of words from the villagers. Mindful that disgrace from the birth would affect them all—from the young to the old—they wanted to express opinions and participate in deciding the fate of the zeru zeru whose destiny was tied to theirs with a double thread.

Nkamba answered her son with a smile, pulling the child toward her bosom, and then she took two small steps to the side until she was standing in front of Kondo and Zuberi. Sefu understood that his mother wanted to receive their consent, face to face. She was looking for a single nod that would spread across the entire island, like a ripple of a wave to the water’s edge. She had always been hardheaded.

The two men were stoic. Kondo broke the impasse when he commanded, Go, Nkamba, accompanying his words with a gesture of his hand. The old woman shuffled in retreat without turning her back to them. Sefu and those gathered watched Nkamba until she disappeared inside the hut with the newborn, fully aware that until she was out of sight, the decision could be changed with the rapidity of clouds that clear for a beam of golden sunlight.

Sefu left with the elders of his clan. He promised himself that he would never so much as glance in the direction of the hut where he had lived with the mother of the zeru zeru. The crowd dissipated behind the leaders’ slow steps; the two men were absorbed in a discussion that no one could hear.

Juma, all alone, stared at the door of her hut. Crossing that threshold meant entering a prison without bars.

Your life as a shunned bride begins today, she said to herself. She looked at the room full of ritual objects for a propitious birth—libations, semiprecious stones, bones for divination. She thought about her joy during the previous months of pregnancy, before the skin of her daughter became whiter than the cloth in which she was swaddled. For an instant, Juma felt the creature move again inside her, recalling the vital force that filled her from the first moment she knew her womb was inhabited. Hate for this zeru zeru replaced her love for her real daughter, and the mother cried out for mercy, imagining her husband there with her. She thought of Afua, his first wife, many rainy seasons older than Juma and a big gossip. Juma had been so proud to have a husband who could afford two wives, and she had been convinced that she would always remain the favored wife. Rain began to fall again, and the fat drops pattered on the straw roof like twigs shaken by the wind. Then Juma heard a cry, and her breasts began to lactate.

Nkamba had been inside the hut, waiting for her. She walked in her daughter-in-law’s direction, holding the baby out toward her.

Juma’s body stiffened.

My dear, Nkamba said with a smile, you must feed your child.

Juma did not react, except to turn her face to the tiny window near the door. The sun will come out soon, she thought.

The baby wiggled in her grandmother’s arms. Nkamba went to her daughter-in-law and unveiled the young woman’s breast. Juma did not resist, and the baby latched onto her nipple. The new mother watched, her arms down by her sides. Nkamba held her granddaughter to Juma’s breast, her hand supporting the baby’s back. Then, with a surge of affection, she passed her other arm around Juma’s neck and pulled her close. The tiny creature, who was between them, drank greedily from her mother. Juma wished a real baby was suckling, not a zeru zeru.

I need to confide something, but I must be certain you will keep the secret, Nkamba said quietly in Juma’s ear.

Juma shifted. Her mother-in-law might have knowledge about her condition. My tongue shall fall in the lake and be eaten by crabs if I speak of it.

"My husband had gone to Mwanza. We did not have a field to plow nor a boat from which to fish; he was forced to look for work elsewhere. Otherwise,