#44days

The pain, oh the pain. What am I going to do? What will I do? God, how do I move on from here? How do I? How, O Lord? Help me, help me, help me!!

The cry of a man in anguish.
A man who has been betrayed.
A man who for eight years has loved a woman.
A man who has been through it with her.
A man who has heard countless times how the woman is not good for him.
But a man who has said that, in spite of it all, he will  love her.

But today, the truth has unfolded.
The truth that has caused him to be in this situation.
It is the truth no man wants to hear.
That the child the woman has been carrying and has delivered, the child that he was so happy to have, the child he went home to every night and woke up to every morning, is not his.


Eight years. Eight blasted years.
That was how long they had been together.
In those eight years, he had wooed her, she had accepted him, with a bit of reluctance at the time.
He was a young man, still in school, he had nothing much to offer except love.
And he was broke.
Campus life was not easy, he depended on the government allowance and the little he made off a side business, burning and selling movie CDs, while he juggled with attending lectures, doing tests and examinations.
He had left campus with a second-class upper degree in Social Studies. He would take what life threw at him.

What am I going to tell my family?
What will my mother say?
My people know this is my child.
I told them when she got pregnant.
I shared my journey with them.
They have supported me all through.
Yes, my brother had his doubts about this relationship four years ago, and he told me, but …. Oh, God, what am I going to do? What?

22nd January 2019.
Time: 2pm.
He sits in the doctor’s room across from the mother of his child.
The child is not sick.
She’s not sick.
He’s not sick.
The doctor is saying something but all he hears is, “excluded” over and over again.
“Too many unnecessary technical terms”, he thinks, “this guy needs to cut to the chase. I’ve got stuff to do.”
And midway through the doctor’s droning on and on, “Doctor, you’re using the word excluded over and over, and it’s making me rather uncomfortable. What do you want to tell us?”
“Well,” the doctor hesitates, and shifts in his chair, adjusting his glasses. “That…”
“That what?” His hands have started shaking uncontrollably. That word ‘that’ was heavy, laced with a lot of meaning.
“That you are not the father!”

Bam! Something hits him hard in the chest, like a battering ram, and he falls back.
His eyes are swimming.
His head is pounding.
Thunder in his ears.
Huge black birds coming at him, their sharp yellow beaks wanting to peck him.
His heart is threatening to burst out of his rib-cage.

Then he thinks, ‘I have to be a man!’

“What do you mean I am not the father?” He has regained his composure.
“Exactly that Mr. Buwembo. That you are not the father of this child. That he is not your son.”
And the pain makes a second landing.
This time he feels like something has been ripped from his body, a huge piece of flesh.
He stands up and pats his chest.
Then his head.
Then his legs.
And then he becomes aware that this is beginning to look, and feel extremely dramatic.

The mother of his child, Anna has bowed her head.
Oh, scratch that -- his former child!
She does not hear the baby gurgle as he calls for attention, wanting someone to play with.
Buwembo looks at her and hate fills his heart.
She starts weeping, and she reaches into her bag for a hanky.
"Take the baby."
He cannot.
He will not touch the child.

He does not know what to feel for this little innocent being.
A being for whom he had so much love.
The one who made him smile as he sat through the heavy traffic from work every evening.
The one whose eyes melted his heart.
The little thing who kept him awake for hours in the night, wanting to play, waving his limbs about, and causing him to feel sleepy during the day.

But just for 44 days.

It is indeed a rude realization, an impolite breakaway.
She is now crying uncontrollably.
Huge heaves, blowing loudly into her hanky.
The doctor is quiet.
It is an uncomfortable situation, but he has seen some.  
Actually, Buwembo is one of the calmer types.

Mothers have walked in here, saying all sorts of things, swearing in all sorts of languages about how children belong to the man and asking how he can subject her to such a test.
Many times, the children have turned out to be someone else’s and men have broken down and bawled like babies after the realization that the boys and girls they have loved and cared for, are not theirs.
Others have charged at the mother of the children, wanting to throttle or beat the hell out of her. 
Some have ranted.
Others have punched the air and celebrated the fact that they are washing their hands of the wretched woman and her equally wretched brats, happy to be able to start a new life without the burden of school fees and break money.

“Well,” he says as he regains his composure, and when it dawns on him that there will be no more theatrics.
“Yes, Mr. Buwembo. So you need to sign this form.”
“No Doctor. I will not sign anything. Let her sign. I’m out of here!”
She raises her head, looks at him with pleading eyes.
He is not moved, and averts his gaze.
God, he cannot stand her!
He needs to leave this space.
How can he be sharing the same oxygen with Jezebel?
Thank God she had left his place temporarily.
She must have known all along because she didn’t hesitate when he asked for the DNA test. 
Of course her lack of hesitation meant something was amiss.
God, how could he be so stupid!
Now he asks himself if anything about the baby resembled him.
There had to be something at least.
The nails?
The hair perhaps?
What about the feet?

The words of his friend, and brother echo in his head.
He hears them again, but even as they sound so far away, they are clear.
“You should have left that girl four years ago!” his brother had told him.
Upon the persistent urging of his friend when the child was born, Buwembo had decided to postpone the baptism ceremony and do a paternity test.
“Just check and see, something is not right.” His friend put it down to a sixth sense.
Men do not say much.
When they do, there is much meaning.
This time, he had listened.
And now the worst has come to pass, his fears have been confirmed.
The baby is not his.
Pain. Pain. Pain.

He has spent so much on the whole process.
From the time she told him the good news.
Hospital prenatal visits.
Cravings in the night.
Driving to her parents' house.
And it’s not even about the money, which hovers in the range of nearly four million shillings.
It is the feelings he has put into this relationship, the love he invested, the time, the care, the trust.

‘What will I do, oh Lord? What am I going to do? How will I go on from here? How will I tell my parents? How will they look at me? They will surely judge me! Oh God! I do not know what to do! Will I be able to work? What kind of man am I? Do I even have the capacity to love or be loved? Eight years I have given to this woman. Eight bloody years. I have cared for her with the little that I have. And when she got pregnant, I said I would look after her, to ensure that nothing happens to her and the baby. And this is what she does? Oh, okay.'

His mind is racing, but he cannot find the tears.
They. Just. Will. Not. Come.
He leans forward, head in his hands, feeling the headache coming on strong.
Suddenly he gets up from the chair and walks to the door.
He is a man and he has work to do.
But as he touches the door handle, a big tear slides unbidden, down his cheek, and he breaks down and sobs like a baby, collapsing in a heap, his body wracked with raw pain.