The Black Path (32 page)

Diddi was on the verge of tears. How had things come to this? When had the situation between him and Inna got like this?

He wants to rush out and leave her. At the same time, that’s the last thing he wants to do. If he goes now, he can never come back—that’s how it feels.

They’ve always been perfidious, he and Inna. Well, not perfidious—but they’ve never let anybody weigh them down. People come and go in life. You open yourself completely, then you let go when it’s time. And the time to let go always comes. Sooner or later. But Diddi has always felt that he and Inna are the one exception for each other. While their mother has always been a cardboard cutout obsessed with thoughts of money and social standing, Inna has been flesh, blood, life.

He isn’t Inna’s exception. He’s slipped away from her. She has allowed it to happen.

“Could you go now, please,” she says in her friendly voice, the voice that’s for just anybody.

She’s so very soft, so very pleasant.

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

He shakes his blond head. Shakes his stringy bangs, feels them flopping against his forehead. They won’t talk about this tomorrow. It’s all been said, it’s all over.

He shakes his head all the way down the stairs, across the yard, through the darkness and home to his wife and his little son.

Ulrika meets him in the doorway.

“How did it go?” she asks.

The little prince is asleep, and she moves in close to him. He forces himself to put his arms around her. Above her head, he meets his own gaze in the gilded hall mirror.

He doesn’t recognize the person looking back at him. The skin is like a mask that is beginning to come unstuck.

And Inna knows about that business with Quebec Invest, that’s bad, very bad. What was it she said? That a journalist from NSD had been asking questions.

Inna lies on the bed holding the damp towel over her nose, which has started bleeding again. She hears the door downstairs open and close again. Mauri’s voice this time.

“Hello.”

She groans inside. Hasn’t got the strength to explain. Has no intention of doing so either. Hasn’t the strength to forbid them to call the police and the doctor.

At least Mauri knocks. First of all he knocks on the outside door, then on the doorjamb downstairs as he calls up to her. He almost knocks on the banister as he calls out that he’s coming up. And he knocks on the open bedroom door before tentatively peeping in.

He looks at her swollen face, her wrecked lips, her bruised upper arms, and he says:

“Do you think you’ll be able to powder over that? You need to come to Kampala with me tomorrow to meet the Minister for Industry.”

Inna has to laugh. She’s absolutely delighted that Mauri is playing it cool and keeping the mask in place.

W
hen Inna and Mauri disembark from the air-conditioned plane in Kampala on December 3, the heat and the humidity explode in their faces like an airbag. The sweat courses down their bodies. There’s no air-conditioning in the cab, and the seats are plastic; their backs and bottoms are soon soaked through, and they try to sit on just one cheek some of the time in order to avoid contact with the seat. The driver is cooling himself down with a huge fan, singing lustily along with the songs pouring out of the radio. The traffic is chaotic; from time to time the cab is at a complete standstill while the driver hangs out the window discussing the situation with other cabdrivers, or shouts and gesticulates at the children who pop up like jack-in-the-boxes wanting to sell this or that, or just to beg. “Miss,” they say with a pleading expression, knocking on the window where Inna is sitting. Inna and Mauri are sitting in the back with the windows closed; it’s like being in a glass box, and they’re sweating like pigs.

Mauri is angry, they were supposed to be picked up at the airport, but there was nobody there so they had to take a cab. The last time he was in Kampala, he noticed the beautiful green parks, the hills around the town. This time he notices only the marabou
storks, gathering in flocks on the roofs with their disgusting red wattles.

The air-conditioning is working in the government building; Inna and Mauri soon begin to shiver in their wet clothes. A secretary shows them into the building and the Minister for Industry comes to meet them as soon as they reach the top of the wide marble staircase with the red carpet and the banister made of ebony. She’s a woman in her sixties, with big hips. She’s wearing a dark blue suit, and her hair has been straightened and put up in a French braid. Her black pumps are worn, you can see her little toe pushing the leather out into a bulge. She shakes hands with them, laughing and chatting and placing her left hand over their right hands. As they walk toward her office, she asks how the journey went, what the weather is like in Sweden. Asks them to sit down and pours them an iced tea.

She claps her hands and wonders with horror in her voice what happened to Inna.

“Girl, you look like someone who’s tried to cross Luwum Street during rush hour.”

Inna tells her the story of how she was attacked by a gang of boys in Humlegården.

“I’m telling you,” she says to finish off the tale, “the youngest can’t have been more than eleven.”

It’s the details that make the lie particularly credible, thinks Mauri. Inna lies with such enviable ease.

“Whatever is the world coming to?” wonders the minister, pouring more iced tea.

Silence for a second. They’re all thinking the same thing, but none of them admits it. The fact that a gang of little boys jump on a woman and beat her up and take her money is like a Sunday church service compared with the problems in northern Uganda, where military security forces and the LRA are spreading terror among the civilian population. And the LRA regularly recruits children as soldiers; they come in the night, aim a gun at the parents’ heads, and force the child to kill the neighboring family “or your mother will die,” then take them away. There’s no need to be afraid that they will run away after that. What would they be coming back to?

Every night, twenty thousand children walk from their country villages into the town of Gulu and sleep near churches, hospitals and bus stations, because they’re afraid this will happen to them. In the morning, they walk home again.

But Kampala is an orderly town where people can sit outside the cafés conducting their business. They don’t want to acknowledge the problems in the North. So neither Inna, Mauri, nor the minister say another word about children and violence.

Instead they begin to touch on the reason for their meeting today. That’s another minefield. They would all like to come to an agreement. But not on the other party’s terms.

Kallis Mining has closed the mine in Kilembe. Five months earlier, three Belgian mining engineers were killed when the Hema militia attacked a bus on the way to Gulu. The infrastructure is falling apart completely. Together with two other mining companies, Kallis Mining built a road from northwestern Uganda to Kampala. Three years ago, it was new. Today it’s practically impassable in places. Various militia groups have mined it, blockaded it and blown it up. They sometimes set up roadblocks once darkness has fallen, and then just about anything can happen. Eleven-year-olds, drugged to the eyeballs and completely spaced out, carrying weapons. And a little distance away, their older brothers-in-arms.

“I didn’t build up the mine for it to fall into the hands of militia groups,” says Mauri.

His security guards around the complex fled long ago. Now there is illegal mining going on there. It isn’t clear who’s actually in charge of things there, using the equipment the company didn’t manage to move out and running it into the ground. Mauri has heard rumors that they’re groups which are allies of the government troops. It’s therefore more than likely that it’s Museveni who’s stealing from him.

“It’s a problem for the whole country,” says the minister. “But what can we do? Our soldiers can’t be everywhere. We’re doing our best to protect schools and hospitals.”

Bullshit, thinks Mauri. If they’re not stealing from me, the government forces are fully occupied taking over mines in northeastern Congo, plundering them and transporting the gold across the border.

The official line is, of course, that all the gold sold for export has been mined in Uganda in state-owned mines, but everybody knows the truth.

“You’re going to have problems attracting foreign investors to your country,” says Mauri. “They won’t be too keen when they hear you can’t control things in the North.”

“We’re very interested in foreign investors. But what can I do? We’ve offered to buy your mine.”

“For nothing!”

“For the amount you paid.”

“And since then I’ve invested over ten million dollars in the infrastructure and equipment!”

“But now all that’s completely worthless! It’s worth nothing to us, either. The region has many problems.”

“You’re telling me! And you don’t seem to realize there’s only one way to solve this problem. Protect the investors. You’d be rich!”

“Would we? How?”

“Infrastructure. Schools. Building communities. Jobs. Income tax.”

“Really? During the three years you were running the company, it didn’t turn over any profit. So there was no income from taxes.”

“We had this discussion at the time! In the beginning you have to invest. Obviously you can’t expect profits for the first five years.”

“So we get nothing. You get the lot. And now you’ve got problems, you come to us wanting help from the military to protect your company. What I’m saying to you is: let the state come in as part owner of the company. It would be much easier for me to find the resources to protect a company we have an interest in.”

Mauri nods and appears to be considering this.

“Then perhaps we might be able to get some help with one or two other difficulties. Suddenly our discharge concession was no longer valid. And we were having a lot of problems with the union toward the end. Perhaps the president could also honor the commitments he made in our earlier agreement. When we acquired the mine, he promised to build a power station at the Albert Nile.”

“Think about my offer.”

“Which is?”

“The state will buy fifty percent of the shares in Kilembe Gold.”

“How much?”

“Oh, I’m sure we can come to some agreement. At the moment the president is concentrating on health care and education about AIDS. We are an example to neighboring countries. We could leave any future profits until the payment has been made.”

The minister’s tone is relaxed, as if they were old friends.

Despite the sharpness of his words, Mauri’s tone is as always in the no-man’s-land between expressionless and friendly.

Inna usually manages to lighten the atmosphere, but can’t bring herself to do it this time. Beneath their friendly, relaxed voices she can hear the clash of weapons.

Mauri and Inna drink several whiskies in the hotel bar. There’s a ceiling fan and a really terrible pianist. Too many staff, too few guests. Westerners who know the prices are three times as high as in other bars in town, but tell themselves they don’t care. It’s still a fraction of what you’d pay at home.

At the same time, there’s an undercurrent of fury. A feeling of constantly being fleeced. Of always paying too much. Just because you’re white. A constant haggling over prices, if you have the energy. And you still end up being conned.

And you’re barely conscious of how irritating it is that one of the waiters is standing there flirting with one of the barmaids. Who is it who’s here to enjoy themselves? The staff or the guests? Who’s paying, and who’s being paid?

Mauri drinks to make everything stop whirling around inside him. It’s like muddy water in there. Something black and flaky that keeps being whipped up to the surface. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it. He wants it to settle down. He wants to sleep, and think about all this tomorrow.

If only Inna hadn’t been beaten up just then. Then perhaps everything would have been different. Then perhaps they would have talked this over together. She would have been able to get him to lighten up. She might even have been able to make him laugh and think: Oh well, swings and roundabouts.

But she hasn’t the strength. She’s drinking to ease the nagging ache in her face. And she’s wondering whether she’s going to get an infection in the cut on her lip or under her eye. They haven’t healed yet, and could turn into tropic sores that won’t heal.

She’s been subdued since it happened. Not really herself. For a number of reasons, as will become apparent.

And Mauri is woken at night by the whirlpools, the black layers breaking away from the edges.

The air-conditioning has broken. He opens the window to the blackness of the night, but there is no coolness, only the constant chirping of the crickets and the sound of the fire-bellied toads.

How could he explain this to anyone? How would anyone understand?

When Inna comes dancing along and proudly shows him the cover of
Business Week
. And he sees his own face.

He doesn’t share their happiness. Pride? Nothing could be further from the truth. The shame impales his body upon a spike.

He’s everybody’s bum boy. Could just as well be the challenge cup at a high-security jail.

When Swedish Industry and the Association of Employers invite him to give a lecture, and take a fee of thirty thousand from each participant, and he fills the place—he’s nothing but their whore.

They hold him up as proof that everybody has the same opportunity. Everybody can succeed. Everybody can get to the top if they really want to, just look at Mauri Kallis.

Thanks to Mauri, all the boys and girls in Tensta and Botkyrka, all those loafers in Norrland, they can all blame themselves. Stop their benefits, make it worthwhile working. Give people an incentive to be like Mauri Kallis.

And they pat him on the back and squeeze his hand and he’ll never be one of them. They have a surname that counts, they have families and old money.