Snakepit (13 page)

As the gravity of the situation sank in deeper, Sister feared for her brother's life. It felt strange that she was privy to secrets Babit didn't know. She weighed what to reveal and what to keep to herself. The fact that she and her brother didn't see each other much made the gravity of the trust more poignant. She knew that she held the keys, some of the keys, to his freedom. The weight of this knowledge had a searing effect on her nerves.

On the day Bat told her about the deal money, she trembled, and it made her look at her husband in another light for some time. It happened at a time when things were going badly for her Mafuta, the former planner of fantasy towns. She could not help comparing, feeling somehow let down. But she had also soon realized that her brother was operating on another level, in a different hemisphere, in a world of absolute power. She had almost told Mafuta. Now she stood on the brink again, wanting to share the burden with Babit. It hurt almost physically to maintain the load of trust in such a dire situation. It seemed as if Babit should know, but what if it backfired? She would lose her brother's trust and incur Babit's displeasure. She decided to grit her teeth a little bit longer, drawing strength from remembering her confusion when she heard that her brother was coming back after his stay at Cambridge. Why was he coming back at a time when many intellectuals were leaving? she asked herself at the time. She had been of the opinion that it was better for him to get a job in Britain. But within two weeks of his return he had landed a terrific job. She remembered how surprised and elated she became. It helped her to hold on to his trust.

That night, however, Sister got a severe attack of cramps; it was as if the baby were forcing its way out. Her world seemed to be collapsing on the ruins of her brother's life. It was a harrowing night spent between states of mind, but the storm eventually passed.

In the morning Babit returned to the city. She hoped to find new developments. Unfortunately, there was no change in the situation. All leads were dead, oozing pessimism or euphemisms to cover inaction, failure. She fled to Entebbe, hoping to find solace in familiar surroundings.

The house felt strange. It lacked warmth, the casual reassurance of days gone by. The house staff seemed to be locked in a muddy inertia, as if awaiting their missing boss. They eyed her suspiciously, as though it was she who was keeping them in the dark. The lake was bereft of its consoling powers, the tireless waves a torment. She sat down on a rock, feet in the water, thoughts all over the sky. It was the wrong thing to do; she kept hallucinating about being swept away. She returned to the house. The cook had informed her that Victoria had called more than a dozen times in the past few days. She decided to pack quickly and flee. She paid the staff, just to make sure that they would stick around, and made ready to leave. Then the phone rang. It kicked off a gong in her chest. She snapped up the receiver.

“You are responsible for this. You are going to burn in hell for it,” Victoria shouted at the other end.

“For what?” Babit shouted back.

“You have destroyed this house. It is your
kisirani;
disaster follows you around like a bad smell.”

“I have the feeling that you engineered this just to punish him for throwing you out.”

“I would never do that. He is the father of my baby, remember? I love him. It is you who needs to be put down.”

“You will go first.”

“It is barren women like you who deserve that. What have you got to show for yourselves?”

Babit suddenly felt weary; she was consumed by pain. She was no good at this. She had never learned to fight mean and dirty, and she always took the bait. The fact that two of her aunts were barren made her feel tremors of uncertainty, fear.

“Have you suffered a heart attack? Why do you not speak?” Victoria taunted.

“You are a sick, demented woman. I have no time to waste on you.”

“Poor you. All my time is devoted to you. You are my project. I designed you, I implemented you. I am going to monitor and evaluate you to the end. If he stays away for a month, I am going to call for a month. If it is a year, I will be on your case for a year. If he never returns, it will be you and me for the rest of your life. If I were you, I would leave for good.”

“You will have to lie with your father before I go.”

“He is dead,” Victoria said in defeated tones.

Babit kept thinking that she was no good at this: “What do you expect from me? Flowers?”

“I will let you know in due time,” a sober Victoria said.

Babit slammed the phone down and saw the cook looking at her. She was old enough to be her mother, and it looked as if she wanted to overstep the boundaries and proffer advice. They locked looks for one long moment, then Babit walked away feeling confused.

The trouble with living in posh areas was the lack of public transport. The nearest bus stop was two kilometres away. Babit reluctantly called a taxi. How long would the money stretch? She had been the one who refused a joint account, for fear that he might be testing her to see if she was after his money. He had offered to open an account for her, but she had stopped him. He will be back, she said to herself as the taxi drove away. Deep blue skies, green leaves, red flowers gripped her imagination.

Babit's arrival at her parents' home was an ordeal. The beaming faces, the glinting eyes that came to welcome her were to be slashed to ribbons with the news. She had fortified herself with the words of the Bible, but in the end she gave in and cried. Her father looked on, mouth open, perplexed. It struck him that if Bat had married his daughter she would be a potential widow. The family sat down and went over the details. The uncertainty seemed to temper all emotions, cautioning against extreme reactions, outbursts. They remembered the first day he came to visit, exuding the kind of class every parent wished on his or her children. They remembered the recent feast, the gifts from Arabia. They remembered the time he appeared on national television, seeing a dignitary off at the airport. Babit's father had talked it over with his friends. Television was only for those with status, power, and knowledge, something to say or show. He had felt a bit afraid, as if his future son-in-law had become too visible.

Two

In the Morgue

General Bazooka's favourite method of break-ing the tension knotted inside him by paranoia, too much work, and the unending pressure of power and responsibility, was hosting orgies. This was the time when he indulged himself and did whatever came into his head. The house, a huge bungalow lighted like a burning ship, would be full of his friends, who would drink, smoke pot, gamble, fornicate and swear deep into the night. His favourite trick was to shoot beer bottles placed next to his friends, and, to perfect the skill, he practised assiduously every week. In the migratory season he often challenged them to shoot birds flying over his house for five hundred dollars per bird. He won most of the time because even if he was drunk, his aim was steady and his friends became reluctant to accept the challenges.

“Come on, Major,” he would say playfully, knowing that nobody could refuse, at least not on two separate occasions, “what will you tell your grandchildren? This is the only occasion we get to spend money meaningfully, I can assure you.”

“All right, General, we shoot two birds and only two and then resume our drinking,” the victim would say to all-round approval and raucous laughter.

As always, they would get carried away as soon as they handled the gun, miss a lot and eventually a heap of dollar bills would pile up at the General's feet.

“I told you,” General Bazooka would say, “the best man wins, I can assure you.”

In the middle of the night, with every guest drunk or stoned, with nothing to aim at except the trees, the whole group would go outside and start shooting at the stars. There were often Russian roulette competitions, beer-drinking contests and duels fought out in bulletproof vests. The General loved holding beer in his cheeks and spraying his guests, especially his dates or pickups. At other times, they all pissed in the bathtub all night long, rolled the dice at the end of the party, and the loser would be made to strip and bathe in the piss. During those moments of wildness, with guns blazing, beer frothing, drugs smouldering, he would imagine somebody, a rival general, an officer from the Military Police, stepping in to interrupt the meeting. He always wondered how the encounter would end. Most probably in a fatal shoot-out.

“I am a prince,” he always said when he became drunk. “I can do whatever I want, I can assure you. If I want somebody's eye, I pluck it. If I want somebody's arm, I harvest it, ha-ha-ha. It is what the princes of old used to do, ha-ha-ha.” And the whole group would join in and cheer.

“This is what we fought for,” a general or colonel would say.

“That was before that reptile came,” a brigadier cut in one evening, shutting up every guest, all of them afraid that General Bazooka was going to erupt or reach for his gun.

“Forget about the reptile, Brigadier. When we are here, it does not exist, I can assure you.”

“Long live Marshal Amin Dada.”

There were times when General Bazooka drank and pissed and shat his pants. He would command his date to disrobe him and clean the mess. He would watch as the woman struggled not to show outward disgust, now and then firing his pistol and swearing. His bodyguards enjoyed the fuss and could be heard laughing in adjacent rooms.

For the orgies, the General had two houses in the suburbs. For decent parties, when he entertained normal guests, he went to his first wife's home. He had given her a mansion at Kasubi, a place famous for the tombs of the banned kings. Driving past the tombs in his fleet of Boomerangs, headed and tailed by Stingers with soldiers hanging precariously on the sides like fruit bats, gave him untold satisfaction. At such moments he felt linked to the old kings, whose centuries of absolute rule he had played a part in ending, first with the attack on the palace, then when Marshal Amin refused to reinstate the kingdoms. As he rolled by, he would think back to 1942 when the last king was crowned. This man with titles such as the Professor of Almighty Knowledge, the Father of All Twins, the Cook with All the Fire-wood, the Power of the Sun, the Conqueror, had fled when he, Colonel Bazooka, had attacked his palace. The Conqueror had been in exile when Marshal Amin, King of Africa, created the new line of kings and princes now in power. It felt sublime to be the man of the moment.

When the body of the Conqueror was brought back to Uganda for burial in 1973, he had been the officer in charge of security at the airport, at Namirembe Cathedral, at the burial site. It was as if the Marshal wanted the people who had begun the demolition of this institution to hammer the last nail in its coffin. He liked to think that his father would have enjoyed seeing his son wielding so much power. Sleep well, old man, he would think, I hope there is a lot of booze where you are.

The only thing the General envied the old kings was the loyalty of their subjects. However grotesquely they misused their power, however many people they killed, people still loved and obeyed them, ready to give their lives for them. He remembered the lines of mourners filing past the coffin, orderly tear-sodden kilometres peopled by men and women who would have braved the hottest sun or the heaviest rain just to have the chance to peek at their king for the last time. As a non-monarchist, the sight made him sick. More so, because now he knew that not many southerners would mourn the passing of Marshal Amin's regime; but then again, no one came to power in order to court a grand funeral procession. Power was there for more basic things, like a fleet of Boomerangs, money, the ability to hammer your word into law.

Through the tinted window of his car he saw civilians walking, cycling, hurrying to their destinations before the curfew set in. It was good not to be afraid of violating curfew laws as these men and women were. It seemed their world never changed: the old kings might as well have been lording it over these very same people; the new kings and princes were now having their turn. At one time he had been like them, caught in a static world devoid of power, shat on up to the eyeballs. Now he was doing the dumping on, and it felt good. At one time he was a victim, swaying to the whims and will of other men; now he was the one whom victims begged for mercy, the man they respected or feared, the man who had the option of treating them with utter contempt and getting away with it.

In the same vein, he had no respect for intellectuals; he had no respect for people paid to split hairs. That Bat was still alive was a miracle to him. How many times had he wanted to kill him? But each time his advisor, who believed that Bat was special, restrained him. Special, when he was a rabid dog? Talking to Robert Ashes? Rabid Dog had to be put down, if only to save the herd. As for the ministry, there was bound to be somebody else to run it. Rabid Dog had to go, Bazooka decided. He has made too much money too quickly, whereas it took me ages to get some decent cash in my pocket. I fought for this government; he didn't. Where would this government be without me? Down in the sewers. It is not fair. Why does the government still need men like him?

The cars started climbing to the crest of the hill. He could see the top of his wife's house beckoning, bragging, resisting the encroaching veils of the night because it stood at the very top. From the front, one could see the city sprawled out at one's feet in a huge semicircle. From the back, distance-flattened forest and marshland took over up to the horizon. The hill was decked out in tall trees, fields, and grassy compounds. The owners of the houses along the way had been bought out or forced to move. These houses were now occupied by his bodyguards or very trusted friends. This was the place he loved most in the city. He loved hills in general. He never forgot that he had been born in a swamp and that Rabid Dog had been born in the embrace of a hill.

He emerged from the limo and swept the compound with his eyes. He loved the massive structure of the house, the huge windows, the large roof. He loved the brick-red walls and the brown tiles. The gigantic trees filled him with a vision of power greater than his. A thousand years old, they made him feel young, at the beginning of his life. At first, he had wanted to cut all the trees and use them for firewood, but his wife had told him that they were gods, visions of eternity. Now he loved them like extensions of himself.

Guests, faces upturned, teeth flashing, pressed forward to welcome him. It was as if they expected him to dish out miracles and turn drums of water into casks of gold. Among them he saw people who expected bigger things from him. These held back, waiting for his eye of recognition, his benediction. He shook hands, slapped backs, shared jokes. He walked among the dozens, feeling his robe touched, his body caressed, his spirit enlarging to embrace them all. Music was in the air. There was a drifting scent of beer and roast goat which made him feel rapaciously hungry. For the first time that week he felt happy, in his element.

His wife, tall, dark, erect, met him at the door. They exchanged greetings as if they had spent the whole week together. This meant that things were going well. She did not like his soldiers but had learned to put up with them, and they were extra-careful when she was in the vicinity. She had grown up around soldiers and her opinion of them was not high. For the same reason, she had refused a chauffeur-cum-bodyguard. She kept out of the limelight and only accompanied him to very special functions. She did her level best to keep family away from the madness of power. They had reached a mature understanding never to stand in each other's way. They said goodbye as if for the last time and welcomed each other back as if they had not been apart. She never pried into his business, preferring not to know what he got up to with his friends. From early on she had made it clear that she would not tolerate drunken excess. Her house was a home, not a bar. He had felt disappointed because he had wanted to enjoy some of the wildness with her, as a way of showing how high they had climbed; but she would have none of it. He had begged, cajoled, commanded. In vain. Being his first wife, the one who had seen him through poverty, the one he could talk to, the one he fully trusted, the mother of his favourite children, he let her have her way.

He had given her a big shop in Kampala where she sold clothes to rich officers' wives. Sometimes she dealt in foreign currency, selling dollars from a gunnysack with a girth like a rhino, hidden in the house.

She led him into the bedroom. He sat on the bed bouncing, suddenly playful. She sat on a chair leaning forward. They held hands in greeting, and he felt erotic pangs, because their love-making always began with holding hands. He sat back looking at her, admiring her, listening to her talk. For a moment he drifted back to the day he met her. In her plain dress, her bathroom sandals, her gap-toothed smile. The children interrupted the moment.

His eldest son, ten, tall, lean, brought him a glass of his favourite liquor. He drank the glass and accepted the boy's manly greetings. His daughter, twelve, fat, brownish, brought him a glass of millet beer, giggles and greetings. He always wondered where the gene that made her fat and light-skinned had come from. His wife's side obviously. Somebody, a grandfather probably, must have fooled around with southerners. He accepted both offerings calmly. His second son, eight, tall, dark, brought him a set of mud soldiers he had made and baked. He laughed and patted the boy on the back. He was in such a good mood that he looked at his wife and children tenderly. They were his world, he felt, what would remain after the madness of power had passed. He took out his wallet and gave each of his children a hundred-dollar bill, remembering that it was a fortune when he was growing up.

“Sweets, buy yourselves sweets,” he said proudly, spreading his arms like somebody shooing away chickens.

“Spoil them, go on and spoil them.”

“Yes, I will, because they are mine. And then finally I will recruit them into the army. You too, woman, I can assure you,” he said, smiling at his wife.

“That will be the day, that will be the day,” she said, bursting into laughter at the idea of wearing a uniform.

General Bazooka finally went outside to join the guests. There were groups sitting around pots of beer with sucking pipes in their mouths, and others drinking liquor from bottles. He visited each group, tasted the drinks, munched the roast goat and talked. He picked up a woman, went to the dance floor and opened the dance. Disco music was playing, heavy beats conducive to bumping and grinding. He jumped about and wiggled, preparing to go and hold court.

At the back of the house, under the shadow of a mighty oak, a table and two chairs had been set out. A bottle of liquor and two glasses stood on the table near a notepad and a battery of golden Parker pens, which were never used, as the General kept every agreement in his head. Two soldiers stood on guard out of earshot.

The General installed himself on his throne, listened to the thumping of the music on the other side of the house, smelled the night air and rubbed his hands together. He always looked forward to these sessions because they enabled him to stretch his imagination and play various roles and present different images to different people.

The first person he called was an old schoolmate. They had been friends many years ago. They had washed cars, mowed grass, stolen mangoes and picked pockets together. The General used to envy the boy his stable home. He was one of the southerners he liked. The man was now a veterinary officer in the mountains of eastern Uganda. His son had got caught smuggling coffee across the lake. Robert Ashes' men had shot four of his comrades and beaten him badly on the way to custody. It was not the most pleasant set of circumstances for a reunion.

“How are you?” the General said neutrally.

“I am all right, sah,” the man said timidly.

“Where have you been hiding all these years?” the General inquired, feeling curiosity welling up inside him.

“In the east, working hard, tending to cows and pigs, sah.”

The General laughed and said, “Tending to cows and forgetting all about us.”

“I knew that you were extremely busy and I could not pluck up the courage to disturb you, sah.”