Snakepit (24 page)

“I am glad to hear that. After all, we came to enjoy ourselves.”

“Is Damon coming back to see us?”

“He doesn't have time. He works more than twelve hours a day.”

“Did you both learn that at Cambridge?”

“Not necessarily. Many Cambridgers don't want to work. We are just special people,” he said by way of bragging. “By the way, what should we eat tonight?”

“Choose. You know London better.”

“Snails, frogs and dog steaks, madame.”

She just laughed.

“I can take you to a Chinese, Indian, Russian, Mexican or even Ugandan restaurant. It is all here.”

“I told you to choose.”

AFTER A MONTH Bat was already thinking about returning home. Things had started repeating themselves. He missed the discipline of work. When he discussed the idea with Babit, she agreed with him. They were sitting at the top of the Grand Empire, the Thames glittering in the distance, the city going about its evening business.

It suddenly occurred to him that if he was going back it would be nice to ask Babit to marry him. Without much ceremony he took Babit's hand, kissed it and asked her if she wanted to be his wife. She accepted. A moment of total silence followed. Bat was glad he had been accepted. He remembered that Kalanda had asked his wife to marry him in a bar. The Professor had done it in his house at the university. It seemed the place did not matter that much.

They sat and watched the lights in the distance. They did not make any solemn promises; there were no dramatics. He had a feeling that they had known each other all their lives, and this had been just an affirmation of a lifelong commitment. He imprinted that part of the city, especially the lights, in his mind. In the years to come they would return to commemorate the day.

“Look at those lights carefully, wife. They are my wedding gift to you. Carry them in your head from now on. After every so many years we will return, stand here and reminisce.”

“Thank you, husband. This is the best night of my life,” Babit said breathlessly.

He ordered champagne. They drank it in silence, looking at each other, and at the city, making wishes. He kept thinking that his fate had been redeemed here weeks ago by Damon, and that a new one had begun in the same city. After a very long time in which not much was said, they descended to their room. They drank more champagne, played some music and danced, and Babit asked him to sing “I Can't Get No Satisfaction” for her. She clapped as he sang, watching every gesture, enjoying every word, every inflection, every modulation. She told him afterwards what he suspected, that nobody had ever sung for her.

As they lay in bed, Babit expressed how happy and proud she was. She talked about informing her parents, her friends, people she knew. She talked about the wedding, the gowns, the guests, the ceremony, and Bat wondered if this was really what it was about. Then it occurred to him that this was indeed Babit's chance to shine, to occupy centre-stage. Somewhere along the line he expected her to talk about children, but she didn't. There was no use spoiling a beautiful occasion by going into a field mined with uncertainty.

In the morning he woke up with the feeling or fear that something had changed. Babit was already awake, watching him, covers up to her chin. They greeted each other cheerfully but did not say much; each seemed to be digesting the implications of the previous night. Bat was overpowered by a feeling of stability. Now he had somebody to take care of through thick and thin. And in turn there was somebody committed to him in the same way. At that moment he thought about Victoria and her obsession with him, and how strangely love operated. From now on I have to take the threats much more seriously, although I see no way of forcing Victoria to stop issuing them, he thought. In sickness and in health: from now on the threats have become health hazards I have to combat for Babit's sake. He sneaked a look at her. She caught him at it and said, “What?”

“Nothing,” he replied, smiling. “You are my wife; don't I have the right to look at you from all angles?”

“Your look was communicating something. As if you were having second thoughts.”

“Not me, dear wife. From now on it is you and me.”

THE JOURNEY to Cambridge was like a pilgrimage; each knew more or less what to expect. Bat showed Babit around, explaining the functions of different buildings, and where he had done what in the past.

“It is not as bad as you made it sound in Uganda,” Babit observed.

“It was the atmosphere I was talking about, not the buildings, dear.”

“I was joking.”

The last days in London were the best. They spent the biggest part of them indoors, lying in bed, taking long baths in the massive tub, or swimming in the common pool. For the first time, Bat thought about growing old and felt he knew what it would be like. He saw it as a slowing down, a liberation from urges, appetites. The years would flatten things out, till he and Babit became more or less like brother and sister. Then, and only then, would he stop working. Then, and only then, would he reveal his secrets to her, and to his friends. They might pout and call him paranoid, but he did not care. By then General Bazooka would be dead, or so he hoped, and his capers ground to oblivion. Those looking for Bazooka would find his name among those of Amin's henchmen. Bat thought he would also ease quietly into oblivion; after all, bureaucrats thrived on invisibility.

On their last day in London they met Damon at his office in the House of Commons to say goodbye. They met his secretary, the woman who had made some of the phone calls and written the letters. Bat looked at the MPs who had signed the letters on a television screen. Blue, they looked like outlandish fish or rare birds flapping underwater. Trapped on the screen, it was tempting to dismiss them as clowns and overlook the terrible power they exercised in the world: the wars they rubber-stamped, the arms they helped pump out around the world, the garbage they let British companies dump. Dressed in suits and ties like sellers of insurance, and shouting “Hear, hear” like a family of monkeys when somebody said something funny, they did not look like men who had the power of life and death over millions of ex-colonials who were clinging to the apron strings of this nation. Damon, ironical, self-deprecating, with his small head and casual manner, was the proof of that.

Bat looked at the massive, history-laden House and at the dirty Thames outside and felt out of place. In the mass of nations yonder he could hardly see tiny Uganda. Momentarily, it looked as if he were pursuing an illusion, returning to virgin territory where he would have to struggle for every crumb of food, for everything. But that was where he wanted to be. He had no qualms about saying adios to London.

LITTLE HAD CHANGED; the government was still on its rubbery legs. It was as if Babit and he had not been away. There was no urgent mail waiting, calling him back to his old job or offering a new one. No government ministry had missed him. Rumours were rife in the city: Amin had been shot at; one hundred bulls had been castrated at the State House and their genitals thrown all over Entebbe; there had been another bloody rebellion in the army; the Vice President had had a car crash, broken his back, and had been flown to Libya; the Saudis had taken control of twenty islands in Lake Victoria; there was a shortage of petrol, a new curfew . . .

The Professor seemed very surprised to see them back; he had assumed that they would stay away longer or not come back at all.

Bat told his friends about his impending wedding.

“Welcome to the fastest-growing club in the country after astrology. What kind of birds are you going to free on the day?” the Professor said acidly, still unable to reconcile himself to his friend's return.

“I remember my wedding to this woman,” Kalanda said playfully. “Everything went wrong that day, but it was the happiest day of my life.”

“It obviously would have been, wouldn't it, for somebody who couldn't cook and was tired of pulling his wire,” the Professor teased, leading to laughter all round.

“At least I made a good choice,” Kalanda said, winking at his wife. “How about you, Professor? Do you still have sex with your wife?”

The Professor took it well. “No, I don't. I do it with my wife's black-and-white pussycat.”

“Boys, please,” Mrs. Kalanda called, amused.

“There is nothing wrong with pussy, dear wife,” Kalanda, who still enjoyed challenging his wife's prudishness, bellowed. “We should hear more about pussies coming from your mouth.”

“Boys, boys, I thought we were talking about Bat's wedding.”

“I will pay for the wrestlers,” the Professor volunteered.

“I will pay for the professional eaters,” Kalanda laughed.

“No, no, no wrestlers and eaters, please,” Bat protested.

IN THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOWED, Bat applied for a job in the Ministries of Education, Planning, and Finance. The Ministry of Finance took him up as Bureaucrat Two. He was part of a team charged with the Herculean task of propping up a dying economy. The statistics were depressing: Foreign debt had soared to $3.8 billion, the trade deficit was $400 million, the shrink rate at which the economy contracted was a whopping 500 percent. Inflation was at 986 percent. Ninety percent of the citizens did not pay tax because of rampant black-marketeering, reversion to barter trade, and worthless earnings. The answer to every money shortage was to print more money, with the latest bills boasting pictures of the Marshal smiling benevolently, kissing babies, eating a lollipop, and shitting on the heads of Imperialists and Zionists.

The money Saudi Arabia sent in exchange for the islands was spent on defence. Amin's disrespect for economists was just getting worse. He liked to ad-lib on fiscal policy and not remain constrained by the stale ideas coming from imperialist countries. Even that wizard Colonel Robert Ashes seemed to have despaired on the economic front. Even God, Dr. Ali, had let Amin do what he wanted in that area. Both men had opposed the construction of an artificial lake in the city suburbs, which meant razing neighbourhoods to the ground, moving people around. But the Marshal saw the project as a future boost to the Department of Fisheries on the principle that two lakes yielded more than one. It would also ease the garbage disposal problem, he had added.

Bat did what he could, an effort that was like trying to dam a river with a few planks. His office was again on Parliament Avenue. In his free time he would think about the Parliament and its secrets. It would now and then give him the shivers, but he knew that his day would come to get back at the regime. Somebody was bound to turn up and show him a way.

The answer came during his wedding preparations. Amidst the bustle, with his people and Babit's mixed in an effort to make it a memorable occasion, his brother asked him for a word. The timing could have been better, what with all the expenditure for the wedding, but Tayari had a dream and could wait no longer. They went to the lake and sat on a rock facing the water.

“We need help,” he said, turning to his brother.

“You and your woman?”

“Me and my friends.”

“I don't seem to know any friends of yours.”

“I am a member of a fighting group.”

“Boxing, wrestling, kung fu . . .”

“A dissident group, brother.”

“Don't you know that it is not good for your health and our well-being?” Bat asked, to hide his shock and excitement.

“Everything is a risk. You were not a dissident, but they took half a year out of you.”

“What has that got to do with your group?”

“We are looking for sponsors.”

“Who isn't? What are your plans? What have you achieved to merit my attention?”

“We spread Amin-Go-Away leaflets in the city. We now need money to buy radio equipment in order to spread the word nationwide.”

“The word is already out, if you don't know.”

“We are going to preach it even harder.”

“Have you thought of the consequences? You are going to be on your toes all the time. Hunted. Do you like that prospect? Do you trust your instincts that much?”

“On the day the soldiers got powers of arrest, detention, torture, looting, the odds became clear. And as always it is the innocent who get hurt.”

“I agree, but I still see no way you are going to have an impact.”

“We are the civil wing. The military wing is in Tanzania. We need to pave the way for them. Like prophets announcing the coming of the Lamb,” he said, grinning.

“A blood-soaked lamb. Let me remind you, brother. I don't want to be cited when confession time comes, you hear? Things are bad enough as they are. I don't want to go back to prison. I have Babit to look after.”

“Calm down, big brother,” the young man said. “The moment we get the money, we disappear. My time as pyrotechnician is over. If I take up my fireworks again, it will be for another sort of celebration. Yours will be the last wedding I will do. I will of course keep on looking out for your best interests, but for the biggest part I will be out of your life.”

“Is this really what you want to do?”

“It is my vocation.”

Bat felt as though he were standing on a threshold, about to launch his brother into the world of dangers he courted. He was also aware that he had not been told the whole truth, but he felt in no position to stop the wheels turning. Let the young man face the world the way destiny cut for him. Maybe he would become a captain, a colonel or general, in the end. He seemed to have the dedication. All his life Tayari seemed to have been gathering himself to seize this moment. Bat felt a moment of intense excitement and closeness to his brother, his avenger. It felt as if he had plucked Tayari's secret and added it to his own little pile.

“It is a deal,” he said, giving his brother a hand.

“I knew you would not let me down.”

“I trust that you know what you are doing. I don't want Sister or anybody else blaming me later on.”