The Soldier's Woman

Mood: Inspired, Listening to John Legend
Frig Index: 0
Communism Bit: On
Location: Job, of course

I just got me a John Legend CD. It's playing. Save Room, et al. Sounding good. Feeling inspired to tell you this true story. Short enough to be fictious, true enough for the Woman therein to be over there (if I look through the window, I could see her).

1984, twenty-fifth December, she was home, food cooked, everything set for Christmas. I got this story, because it could very easily become mine. Her husband was a revolutionary. One of the Museveni guerillas, you know. He had said he'd be home for Christmas, but now the sun was setting. She had dressed up for him. The surprise party. Aphrodisiacs in the food. No kids to censor stuff for. Not as yet. They had been lovers for like many years, but had avoided kids, despite the heated nights. Now, she insisted she wanted one made while he was home `because even the best fighters may not survive the war.'

When she told me this story, she was completely devoid of shyness. She told it straight. I hope I remember to tell you what prompted the telling. It was told over food. But this was one of those meals that keep you on the table long after the food has been digested and spent. And you are just talking, talking, talking. A couple of sodas, every now and then. And talk. More talk. She was talking, now.

That she gave up waiting. `Maybe he had found it dangerous to make the trip.' Entebbe was a bit hard to access back then, especially when you are a dangerous guerilla. But he was a genius with evading authorities. I don't want to name him (lest it become slightly political), but he even helped Museveni during his underground trips.
Ten o'clock, at night. Someone tried the door ... (Heaven Only Knows is playing.)
It was the revolutionary. He didn't need any inspiration from the aphrodisiacs, as things turned out. Wild night. Then the food (with Boosters (tm)). Then more wildness. `We were like ... even rabbits don't get that terrible!' Okay, now a shy chuckle escapes her. Because of who else was listening. I'll tell you who. They slept at almost eight o'clock, the morning of the twenty-sixth.

And at about noon, they were awoken by someone trying the door. I will rush through this. She goes to check, and is struck in the face with the butt of an AK-47. He is dragged out. Men speaking kiSwahili. `They had been tracking him, all along. He had shaken them off, but they smelt him.' Sombre mood, on the table. And you could see that the food we were eating - this was on the twenty-fifth of December, last year - was bringing back the memories.
She never saw her War Hero again. But God knows his own. He certainly does. She conceived, that night. These two were probably the world's tightest lovers. He had his heavy ideological leanings, but she was his main ideology. Maybe such deep love should be short-lived, so it can die before it loses its sharp edge. Maybe not. This love, it lives on. She still loves him.

I was seated next to her daughter, on that table. `Your father, he was that kind of man. He loved as much as he hated. And he hated what he fought against to death. And loved me to death. I won't live until I die. Until I give him aphrodisiacs, and we make love until the next sunrise.' The girl gave me that look of `you don't love me like that.'
Definitely not, I was thinking. I don't love you at all, chic. But, still, if I ever got me a chic, she would be a soldier's woman.

Coming Home is playing.