Short Story: Young Bananas Don`t Ripen

Short Story: Young Bananas Don`t Ripen

Dina Liiga was eight years old when she went to live with her cousin Mabel and her husband, Daniel. Her parents had died two years previously and her grandma had told her she had to go live with her cousin in town so she could go to a better school there.

Mabel worked like a slave, though they still had to eat humbly; nothing kingly about their meals though they were decent ones. She sold vegetables in the market and had to live the house by 5 a.m. That way, she could get fresh vegetables from the farmers themselves, which was also cheaper than buying them second hand. She would normally not come back home until after 9 p.m.

Daniel worked as a tout/conductor for a friend of his who had used his retrenchment package to buy a minibus. They started work at eight and were back home by seven in the evening.

One year into her town life, Dina started noticing changes about her figure. Her breasts were growing bigger by the day, her hips got more rounded and her bum increased in size. She talked to Mabel about it and Mabel assured her it was normal and natural.

At ten, Daniel started taking special interest in her. He was always sending her for stuff and Dina would sometimes catch him staring at her as she walked away. When she walked toward him, his eyes always seemed fixed on her breasts. He would send her for a towel while in the bathroom and she had seen his nakedness a few times, one time seeing what looked like a nodding snake between his hairy legs.

One Saturday morning, after Mabel had left for work, Daniel came to her bed. Dina slept on the floor on the other side of the single room, on a thin foam mattress that Mabel had used in college years back.

That first time, he had a large knife in his right hand and told her that if she made any noise, he was going to be arrested for murder. He had then pulled off her panties and spread her small legs. She remembered he had smelled of Mabel`s jelly, which he had applied on his snake with his left hand. Some of these conclusions she had drawn years later but she was sure about the jelly because when he had clamped his left hand on her mouth to stifle her moans of pain, she smelled it.

This business went on for three years. She could not tell Mabel, afraid on two fronts. On the one hand, Daniel had threatened to kill her. On the other, she knew Mabel would kill her, accusing her of lying about her husband.

A few months into the third year, she got pregnant. Good thing Mabel was not around to see her sick in the morning and after cooking the evening meal, she went to bed before Mabel returned from work. Three months after a friendly neighbor had assured her she was pregnant, Dina ran away.

She had taken money from Daniel`s pocket after he was done defiling her that night. She had slept in her traveling clothes so in the morning, just after Mabel turned the first corner, she had left. She had boarded for Bugiri, her grandma`s village. On getting there, she found that the woman had died two weeks back and some stranger had already taken over her land; she could not stay. She went back to the trading center and this time boarded for Iganga, a town her teacher had said was `more Cosmo than Politan`, forty kilometers from Jinja and about the same from Bugiri.

The first day in Iganga was indelibly etched on her brain. She had tried to find work as a maid but no one would have her, one woman openly telling her she was pregnant, which meant she knew about sex and so no woman in her right mind was ever going to hire her; she could steal one`s husband.

Pretty soon it was dark and she had nowhere to go. At the Police Station she was turned away, the Desk Sergeant telling her they no longer encouraged non-suspects to spend nights at the place unless there were very extenuating circumstances, whatever he had meant by that.

At the Bus Park there was not a soul and the Taxi Park was now turned into a night parking lot. The guards there shooed her away. She had ended up sleeping on the street, in front of some unguarded shop.

In the middle of the night, she was awakened by the sound of boots on concrete. Powerful lights shone into her face and she realized there was no power, these guys were using torches. One of them asked for her ID but of course she had none. He grabbed her by the hand and roughly pulled her to her feet; she could smell he was drunk, and by now she could tell they were policemen.

One of the others said they were giving him thirty minutes and they walked away. The policeman holding her pulled her into an alley between two shops and pulled up her dress, then bent her over. She screamed out in pain when he acquainted himself with her body, almost ripping out her bowels. Within minutes he was gone and she lay there against the wall, crying and wishing she could die there and then.

In the morning, before sun up, she cleaned herself up as best she could in a pothole. She was hungry, cold and in more pain than she had ever felt in all her life. She wondered what she should do.

Going back to Mabel`s would mean that sooner than later Mabel would notice she was pregnant and there was no knowing what she would do. Daniel might also do something dangerous to her to keep his little dirty secret, though compared to the policeman from last night, he seemed a better devil.

Then again, there was going to be a need for a long explanation as to where she had spent the night, where she had gotten the money to travel; or how Daniel`s pocket could drop money in the house by itself. No, Mabel and Daniel`s was no longer her home.

But then life on the streets had already proven it was going to be a very hard one. She had gone to disturbed sleep fearing street kids would pounce on her, only to wake up to a nightmare administered by patrolling policemen. That meant there were more dangers for her on the street than even at home. If men were going to use her by force every time, she would not last but a few days.

One option was to find a way of killing the baby then going back home, or staying on the streets and hunting for a job. One thing was clear, the baby was stopping her from staying at home, getting a job and she could not live with it on the streets either. Not to mention supporting herself through the pregnancy before that.

Now, however she was going to get rid of it? Who could she turn to for help? Where was God when you most needed Him?

At first light, she started looking for a Drug Shop; she would buy a lot of drugs for sleep, swallow them, and hope when she woke up the baby would be gone.