In her frequent dreams, Naliaka would prepare a meal for her husband. She would clean the Tilapia fish, sprinkle it with herbs and spices, fold it in banana leaves and gently simmer it in little water. She would also boil some Cassava roots then split and cut them in small pieces. She completed the meal with a couple of bananas and a jug of cold milk.

She would place everything on a large tray made from woven twigs, balance it on top of her head and take it to him out in the fields. He would be there harvesting maize, his shirt off, dark skin glistening with sweat in the hot sun. He was a strong man with rippling muscles on his back, and arms bulging with biceps. She would pause and stare as though it were the first time she had set eyes on him. And her heart would melt with warmth.

Then Naliaka would wake up in hell. Every part of her body hurt. She was as thin as a stick and mottled with sores and rashes. She could barely swallow food or drink let alone keep it down. Her own children were afraid of her and rarely came in to see her. The only person who cared for was Memi, the maid. Memi had come into her employment at the tender age of thirteen where she helped cook, clean and baby-sit. Though many people treated their maids like slaves, overworking and underpaying them, Naliaka treated Memi as she would her own child. She fed her well, bought her good clothes and took her out to town with her for sightseeing. Little did she know that this act of kindness would be paid back in a way greater than she had ever imagined.

Being struck with a disease that carried such a stigma that people hated you and avoided you like the plague takes a toll on one’s mind. Not only was the physical pain unbearable, the emotional pain was worse. What wrong had she ever done in life to deserve this? This was simply a disease much like cancer or tuberculosis. Why did it bring hatred upon its victims? People would curse her and spit at her. Nobody visited her anymore. She could not hug and kiss her own children because they were afraid they would catch what she had.

It’s not like Naliaka didn’t see it coming. It was her husband who had strayed and brought the disease home. By the time she knew he had it, it was also too late for her. She wanted to hate him so much for bringing this plague into her home and eventually turning her children into orphans, but she couldn’t. How could she hate a man she loved most of her life? How could she hate her childhood sweetheart, her best friend? How could she hate the man who promised her love and providence and made good on it?

“Why did you do this to us?” She had once asked him as the disease ate away at his once muscular body reducing it to mere bones.

“I’m only human, Naliaka,” he had replied. “In a moment of weakness I destroyed our lives. Do you think that if I had even imagined it would be a fraction of this I would have done it? I can’t say I’m sorry enough.”

Naliaka had nursed him through his last days. She fed him, bathed him, lay beside him at night and held him as he cried like a baby. She had endured his screams when he had nightmares, his unintelligible ramblings as he began to lose his faculties. She never abandoned him till the end because that was her duty as his wedded wife; to love and to cherish through the good and the bad.

And here she was alone fighting this nightmare he had brought to her. She knew she could not have made it this far without Memi’s compassion. She slept on a makeshift bed on the floor across from her and would come over, wipe Naliaka’s tears and comfort her when she sobbed at night.

“It’s all right, Mama,” Memi would whisper. “You’ll be okay.” Naliaka’s own children whom she had fed, cleaned, provided for and reassured in troubled times were nowhere yet this stranger comforted her in her deepest need. It was true for Naliaka that good deeds are repaid in mysterious ways.

Sometimes, when not lapsing in dementia, she could clearly recall the times before the plague. Her life was an Eden; innocent and simple yet satisfactory in all ways. But in the same way sin visited Eden and destroyed paradise, this plague made a horrible entrance in Eden’s innocence and brought hell to an unsuspecting people. It attacked a culture that had laws and mores that allowed promiscuity to permeate through its people. Men could marry multiple wives therefore cheating was not frowned upon. After a husband died, his brother could inherit his wife so if the wife was infected, she would infect the new husband. Girls as young as ten years old were married off to older men some in their sixties who had had many partners in their lives. This brought the plague to young women. All that plus lack of education about the plague and complacent rulers allowed the plague to spread like wildfire.

Most victims were innocent women like Naliaka who were suddenly branded the scarlet letter by others who even may have had the disease but were not aware of it yet. Stigmatized and abandoned by all who should care, many died alone in pain and desperation.

Naliaka wanted to let go. She asked Memi more than once to feed her poison so she could die, but Memi would not do it.

“Please don’t ask me to do that, Mama,” she told her. “I couldn’t kill no one and I would never even think of killing you. You’re a mother to me. You took me in and raised me right. I would die before I killed you.”

“I can’t go on, Memi. I’m suffering.”

“You just hold on. Be patient and your time will come. Only God can take you when it’s your time.”

When her time finally came, Memi sat by her bedside and read passages from the Bible. She assured her she was going home. She would finally be with her husband in a much, much happier place. With a faint smile, Naliaka passed on.