Snakepit (22 page)

“Anyway, for cleaning out our bank you need a bunch of false passports and two T3000 tanks,” Kalanda advised.

“I would drive the tanks myself,” the Professor said, making driving motions with his hands.

“The children, boys, the children,” Mrs. Kalanda interjected.

“What is this with the children all the time? Every time we open our mouths to talk, out come the children,” Kalanda shouted, exhibiting the aggression that came when he got really drunk.

“Bat, you should have cleaned out that mother-shagging ministry,” the Professor said almost dreamily.

“His head would be hanging on a spear in his boss' office,” Kalanda said. Bat laughed.

“Did they can you for nothing?”

“They did not like my haircut,” Bat replied evasively. “But I can't complain. I have met people. Including the killer of the Megaphone, as we called the Big Bossman at the office.”

“Did he like your haircut?” Coming from Mrs. Kalanda, it sounded very funny.

“He didn't say and neither did I care. He is a man of few words.”

“Maybe he had a toothache or indigestion,” Kalanda volunteered.

“Any news from your former boss?” the Professor asked.

“Not that I know of. Whether that is due to toothache or indigestion, I can't say.”

“Plans, any plans?” Mrs. Kalanda asked, trying to rejoin the conversation.

“A man has just escaped the claws of death and you are asking him what he wants to do? Would you know what you wanted to do if you were in his shoes?” her husband asked rather angrily.

“Yes, I would. I wouldn't want to go back, for sure. Let them not patronize you,” she said, laying a hand on Bat's knee.

“We went to Mabira looking for you,” the Professor announced solemnly.

“Christ! It must be unspeakable,” Bat cut in, wondering whether they needed to know all the details. Was it really necessary?

“There are no words for it,” the Professor said, shaking his head. “Just the thought that your friend could be there!”

“With a stiff dick,” said Bat, laughing to forestall the Professor's maudlin outpourings, which alcohol always brought on. He was in his forties, but he already had grey hair. At such times he looked like a sad old man. He kept relighting his pipe, tamping, puffing. Bat knew that soon the Professor would be talking about his sickly wife, going back to the days when she was healthy, full of life. It was not the kind of story he wanted to hear now.

“Do you know the number of times we have all passed by the Parliament these last months? And the bastard was there watching us!” Mrs. Kalanda finally said.

“That sounds better. Bastard sounds perfect coming from your lips. I can see him in there,” her husband said drunkenly.

“Welcome to Uganda. I will drink to Mrs. Kalanda's first bastard this evening,” Bat said excitedly.

“You are all making a meal of it as if I have never used these words before,” Mrs. Kalanda said defensively.

“Not often enough, dear wife. You should swear and curse a little bit more. There is so much to swear at in this country,” Kalanda said, slapping her thigh.

The group kept vigil till late into the night. They ate and drank and rejoiced, and by the time they decided to go to bed, it was too late for the Professor to leave. His house was half a kilometre away, but he couldn't risk getting attacked by drunken soldiers. He and Bat shared a guest bedroom.

“It is a bloody shame I can't give you my wife to warm your bed for the night,” Kalanda said as he left the room with his wife.

“Don't mind him,” she cooed coyly, licking her bee-stung lips. “He has had too much to drink. Haven't we all?”

The Professor was a big snorer and filled the room with his half-choked piggy grunts. Bat was tormented by insomnia triggered by unfamiliar comfort and thoughts about how Babit was doing. He felt bad because there had been no chance of contacting her since she was not at home. He hoped she still loved him and had not suffered too much; her family too. He hoped she had managed to get some money. The comforting thought was that he was back, eager to undo much of the suffering and to pay for whatever debts she might have run up. His stomach's protestations against drastic diet changes resulted in a bout of diarrhoea, which kept him on his feet for part of the night. He would rise in the darkness, seek out his sandals with his feet, and make his way to the door. The Professor slept soundly through it all, sounding like a small herd of overfed pigs.

This was Bat's second time to sleep in this room. The first time had been soon after his return from Britain. It felt strange, for now there was nothing to show that he had been here before.

DURING HIS FIRST WEEKS of freedom, he was gripped by undue fear of soldiers. It came in flashes: the roar of a speeding Stinger, a snatch of hammering boots or harsh, chilling voices. The sight of these creatures, with green and brown combat fatigues spotted like leopard skins, made his stomach clutch or his heart race for a while. He would feel fear rising from deep within him like bile, and he would make an effort to hold himself together. It was as if he missed the old order, where this fear had been a staple part of the day. Now it was as if they were stalking him. The fact that he still had the house at Entebbe and that his salary kept coming added to the confusion. The fear of eviction had been at the back of his mind for some time. Visions of Babit being flung from the house had tortured him. He knew that many generals would kill for a house with so much history, but the fact that they did not make a move made the picture unclear. A systematic, logical man, he expected his enemies to be methodical too.

As the car approached the house, he started to panic. How was the staff going to react? He had always kept them at a distance, and now he felt uneasy about having to deal with them. He was sure that Babit was not at home, and he planned to send her a messenger later in the day. He spent an anxious moment in the parked car, taking in the trees, the yard, the lake, the house. Where was everybody? Everything seemed frozen. It looked like a house where somebody had died weeks ago. He felt awkward in Kalanda's clothes. A refugee unsure of the reception awaiting him.

As he plucked up the courage to get out of the car, the front door flew open. Babit appeared, an anxious frown on her face. She had returned the previous evening, in between flights from Victoria's threats, disconnected the phone and gone to sleep. She stood on top of the steps waiting to see who had come to visit. She had lost weight and looked drawn. It was a positive sign: she had been waiting. He wanted to prolong the moment and see what would happen. She could not see clearly inside the car and the waiting made her nervous. She opened her mouth to ask who was in the car.

He emerged, head and neck like a tortoise's, and he saw her eyes popping, her jaw dropping open. He had become an apparition. She started hurrying down the steps, almost tripping and falling over. She stopped at the bottom, as if seized, as if unsure how to proceed. He stood still beside the car, not knowing whether he was smiling or frowning, and then rushed towards her, arms spread wing-like, propelled by all the choked feelings of love laced with guilt, desire, relief, and enclosed her. She flopped onto his chest, tears wetting his shoulder, her sighs penetrating deep into his starving, tormented body. Her shape felt reassuringly familiar. He could feel his spirit expanding, making way for her once again, combatting the selfishness and indifference which had held his sanity intact in detention. They mounted the steps in awkward fashion. Things looked more familiar now, as if she were the guide through whose eyes he saw the house. They sat next to each other, trying to read each other. The tears in her eyes flickered like a random spread of gems, charming him with their message of steadfast love, longing, anxiety.

She waited, an open chalice, ready to absorb his story, his body, his spirit. He gave her scattered bits in the bedroom, arms fumbling, groping. Clad in borrowed clothes, he was a hungry refugee in dire need of the nourishment her replete depths promised. The curtain-filtered rays pouring into the room fell on her skin and made it glow, like a ripe fruit bursting to release its sticky juice. All the stolidity, the indifference induced in him by captivity seemed to erupt and empty into her, the receptacle which could hold it without overflowing. Charged by deprivation, he prodded her swollen womanhood, reminding himself how it had been and setting the course for the future.

Let us fuck all afternoon, his greed said somewhere.

He had missed her husky, impassioned voice, and the way coitus penetrated it and extracted the underlying childish whimpers he cherished. He had missed her heat, her tightness, the clean sheets, the trees outside, the lake, the luxury of contemplating it all while riding her, while lying beside her, freshly wiped with a smooth white cloth. Without her, the world felt remote, expendable, parched, hostile.

Drained, glowing, he could see her clearly, hear her, open himself to her, a kid after a good suck at the tit. Her trials and tribulations of the recent past, her fears, the frantic searches, the dread of finding him in the pile of oozing bodies, she told him. It sounded terrible, depressing, searing to the soul. He could imagine the anguish her family had undergone, the doubts, the pain. This was what he had all along been protecting himself against. He did not feel any immediate need to confess his sins, nor that he knew the secrets of the forest intimately. By withholding his secrets he believed he was doing penance, suffering like the others had suffered on his behalf. He knew that if he told her, she would absolve him too quickly, cry about it and leave him without a clear sense of what to do next. The secrets were his reminder, his warning. They made him protective of her, made him feel he wasn't using her to unload his problems.

“It wasn't your fault, dear. Don't think about it . . . Anybody would have done the same . . .” she would have said to reassure him.

His detention secrets and money secrets made him feel in control. They made him feel responsible for those nearest and dearest to him.

News of Victoria's evil campaign saddened him. It took him back to the threatening letter he had written the boy so many years ago. It was like an old wound opening. He didn't know exactly what to do, apart from talking to her, and demanding that she stop harassing Babit. Was Victoria capable of carrying out her threats? He had brought her into his house; he had chased her out, but keeping her spirit out was going to be that much more difficult. He had desired a fresh start, but it was evident that he would have to settle old problems first.

He exercised his freedom in visits to family and friends. He travelled to his sister's home. The emissary he had sent to inform her of his release found her in labour. By the time he arrived, she had already delivered a baby boy, a large shapeless bundle with its father's blunt features. Mafuta was overjoyed; she beamed with pride, the first hurdle cleared. She lay in hospital recuperating, getting attention for the damage inflicted on her by the bundle. She smiled through her pain, crying tears of joy over her brother's resurrection. She and Mafuta had had a big quarrel: She wanted to name the boy after Bat. Mafuta had wanted none of it. He wanted to supply all the names; it was his first child, after all. The child bearing the names of a man he disliked smacked of defeat, loss of face and authority. They had reached a compromise: she would provide one of two first names; Mafuta would give the baby its surname.

On arrival, Bat heard that he had acquired a namesake.

“I am overjoyed, Sister,” he said, squeezing her hand and looking in her eyes.

“It is a very good coincidence,” Babit remarked, wondering whether she was really barren. The sight of babies had started to hammer her with doubt and a string of questions. Bat's indifference to the subject just seemed to make it worse for her. She imagined the joy he would have felt had he come from captivity expecting a son. She imagined herself in Sister's place, flat on her back, propped by white pillows, smiling, receiving homage. The stark white room, with the green bed and the casement window, looked like a sweet cross to carry and get crucified on before entering the paradise of motherhood.

“I am so lucky to have a sister like you,” Bat said loudly, as if addressing a big audience. “Calling Villeneuve was the most important move in the whole drama.”

“I kept blaming myself that I had not done enough. I would lie here and curse myself for not being in the city trying.”

“I knew you were doing your very best, Sister,” he replied, squeezing her palm. Tears filled her eyes. For a moment he felt extremely close to her, as if he knew everything about her and would remain by her side forever.

“Brother-in-law, welcome back,” Mafuta said, marching into the room. “It is a relief to see you back.” He squeezed Bat in an impromptu bearhug.

“I appreciate the effort you made on my behalf. A son is a fitting reward. Congratulations.”

“Thank you. A historical baby in family terms,” Mafuta said, glowing with pride. This was his creation, the best thing he had ever done. He was euphoric. All the pieces of his life seemed to have fallen into place. He seemed to have won a victory over Bat. He had a son, somebody like him; Bat didn't. He felt grateful for the moment. He wanted to stretch it out before gloom, competition, jealousy, tarnished and swallowed it.

Bat found the town small, uninspiring. It did not evoke any tender feelings in him. It was just another shapeless entity astride the road. Rural life bored him; it constricted him. It looked frozen, caught between the past and the future, as if afraid to advance or retreat. Having grown up among farmers, listening to their complaints about fluctuating crop prices, he now felt how cut off they were from the centre of power, government, decision-making. He had vowed never to find himself in such a predicament in the future. It was one of the reasons why he wanted to stay in Uganda. Here, he could move things; abroad, he would be on the periphery, a refugee trying to find a foothold. He always believed that the city and the big towns were the place to be. If they were dangerous and unpredictable, that was a fair price to pay.