Travels with Myself and Another (30 page)

Perhaps we were between Rukungiri and Lwasamaire and perhaps not. The map was dotted by place names in small print but I had seen none of the places, nothing at all for at least two hours. Nobody to blame except myself. I thought a yellow road was a short cut and would get us to Kisoro faster than a thin red road. The surface of the road is a type well known in Africa, ridged or corrugated mud like a washboard. There is no good way to drive such a road but the least painful is at speed, trying to hit the top of the ridges and avoid the valleys. We could not drive at speed, even our pitiful speed, due to the twists and bends in this abominable road. Every foot of the way jolted the spine up into the back of the head while also jarring the teeth. I had passed from daylight-distance intestinal knots to despair. Wooded hills rose on both sides, a stream ran below us. The road led nowhere and nobody lived on it and I did not know where we were and in a few more hours, in darkness, we and the car would shake to pieces. The thing about Africa is that you cannot give up and take the easier way out because there is no easier or other way. It must be very good for building character. You have to go on, the alternative being suicide.

“We’ll never make it, Joshua.”

“Make, Memsaab?”

Keeping the wheel steady took all my strength and talking sounded like bad hiccoughs. Above the rattling roaring noises of the Landrover I heard something else. Something human. Thank God they had people here. Joshua could ask where this road went, if anywhere. We came on them from behind. They filled the road. They were a screaming crowd. I tried a tentative honk on the horn, then less tentative. They made room for us to pass. Every face was twisted in fury, every mouth open, shouting. They carried placards and jumped up and down, as if bitten by vicious insects. I was not inclined to stop among these enraged people to ask road directions. Joshua could see better from his side.

“What do the signs say, Joshua?”

Leaning out of the car, he reported, “Down with Poppie. Down gravy umage.”

“What in hell are you saying?”

The man couldn’t do anything, anything, he couldn’t even read. Having passed the shrieking throng, I drew up, motor running, and got the binoculars. I was careful not to stick my head far out of the Landrover, just enough to check those placards. Hand-painted, they said “Down with the Pope,” “Down with Graven Images.” Mrs Simpson and Mr Popper had not exaggerated the puzzling quality of Africans. In the middle of nowhere, on a washboard road between desolate hills and primeval forest, a crowd of Africans was yelling against the Pope.

Less than a mile farther, we ran head-on into another crowd of howling Africans. The scenery was the same, trees, hills, stream; the whole insane lot might have sprung from the ground: head-on I could see for myself. A dripping Bleeding Heart, simpering pink-and-white portrait of the Virgin, a single placard saying “Heretics” in big red letters. This gang also blocked the road and again, close to hysterical laughter, I honked the horn and they made way. They hardly saw us; they were so busy screaming, shouting, waving their fists and glaring forward to the enemy. They too did not recommend themselves as people to chat with. Better lost than torn limb from limb.

Presumably when they met, Protestants and Catholics on this narrow road, holy war would break out. Ugandan Africans were the most literate of East Africans thanks to missionary teachers. I thought they could all have lived full happy lives without learning to spell “graven images” and “heretics.” They were rich enough in tribal hatreds, they didn’t need theological furore as well. The road continued to be back, neck, and teeth breaking and we were still nowhere but at least clear of religious fanatics.

“Crazy people,” Joshua said. “Smell bad. Act bad. Bad country.”

He was as alarmed as I was; he seemed to have grown paler; he sat hunched and miserable, clutching the roof support to keep from bouncing out of the Landrover.

“You believe in God, don’t you Joshua?”

“Yes, Memsaab. God in church. Those crazy people making that noise about God?”

“I guess so. Never mind. But since you believe in God, then pray.”

“What for, Memsaab?”

“That we get there.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. It doesn’t matter. Anywhere will do.”

I don’t know how or when we reached Traveller’s Rest in Kisoro, not that night certainly and I think I took a day off in Kabale to ease my bones. Kisoro is singularly dim to me: a small bearded genial man, aged between fifty and seventy, the owner of this outpost of civilization; a wood dining room with kerosene lamps and innumerable insects buzzing about and seeking death against hot glass; soft steady rain on endless forest. I could hardly climb in and out of the Landrover, no question of climbing these matted mountains on the chance of seeing a gorilla. I would settle for Alan Moorehead’s fine description of the climb and the giant coal black primates.

On the other hand, I had to walk somewhere before I lost the use of my legs. Since the end of January I had walked only the terrifying moments in Waza game park; I got more exercise any day in Hyde Park than in all of Africa. It was morning, cool at this altitude, and the dirt road cut through a tall bamboo forest. Bamboo is always lovely and lovelier here because it was familiar, friendly, creaking in the breeze, very different from the ominous thick trees we had left behind. I stopped the car and got out.

“I’m going to walk for an hour, Joshua.”

“Where, Memsaab?”

“Just down the road. If I’m not back in an hour you can drive on to meet me. There aren’t any police around here to catch you.”

“What shall I do, Memsaab?” He looked scared and bereft. I might have been abandoning him in the centre of the Sahara.

“Wait in the car and read your book.” Joshua was still working away at the thriller. I had explained that Istanbul was like Nairobi only bigger and that St Sophia, where the spies spent much time dodging around behind pillars, was like the Nairobi cathedral.

Mute, Joshua fixed me with accusing eyes.

“It’s perfectly safe here. Nobody will bother you.
Buck up,
Joshua.”

Out of sight of the Landrover, I felt suddenly relieved of great burdens. Relieved of noise and the strain of driving and worry about the roads and the health of the car and relieved of Joshua. I was free. I had an hour to breathe the mountain air and listen to the trees. I skipped foolishly, light-headed with pleasure. It was the first attack of happiness in Uganda.

“You gone more than one hour,” Joshua said angrily, holding out his wrist-watch. “A snake was on this road.”

“What of it? They can’t climb.” Like hell they can’t. “If you were frightened, why didn’t you drive to meet me?”

Joshua tossed his head, the gesture of an offended damsel, and withdrew into sulking silence.

I was struck by my second revelation about Joshua; I was willing to bet he couldn’t drive at all, never had, didn’t own a licence. He was just a sharp city boy who wanted a job and took a chance on a dumb European tourist. The thought made me tremble with anger. Miserable little cheat, I’d force him to show me his licence; I’d rub his nose in it; I’d wring his neck. I lit a cigarette to calm myself and was swept by weary resignation. If I was right, Joshua would lie about his licence, he’d lost it in Kabale or something; if I was wrong he’d just be more shirty and tedious. We had a long way to go, almost too long to think of and we were going it together; peace is preferable to war. Joshua stared out his side of the car, pointedly snubbing me. There was a limit to what I’d take.

“Listen, Joshua, I will damn well not put up with bad temper from you. You’re getting a free ride through Africa—a
paid
free ride—and you better be thankful. Pull yourself together right now, you hear me, and stop sulking or I swear I’ll kick you out and you can walk home.”

He looked at once pathetic and cowed, the helpless African bullied by the cruel European. Patience, everyone had said from west to east, patience is what you need most in Africa.

Madame Dupré lived on an island in the middle of a torrent. The island was just large enough for her house and a small encircling garden. A flimsy swaying footbridge connected the island to the riverbank. Madame Dupré had two guest-rooms and took in travellers if she liked their looks. I don’t remember where this island was, somewhere between Kabale and Mbarara, nor remember how I heard of it. Finding it was a feat. I tiptoed down the steep descent of the bridge and presented myself to Madame Dupré who noted my dusty bedraggled weariness and accepted me. The Landrover and Joshua were to stay on the riverbank where Madame Dupré’s servants lived. Perhaps Madame Dupré rolled up her drawbridge at night.

She was a bird-size Frenchwoman about sixty years old, with pale wrinkled skin, no makeup, grey-streaked brown hair wobbed on top of her head, brilliant malicious eyes, and the sort of old black crochet shawl worn by Paris concierges. Her sitting room was walled in books from floor to ceiling, as were the short passages between bedrooms. The sitting room had much charm, a round table covered by a tasselled cloth under a hanging lamp, comfortable chairs in faded blue cotton brocade slips, long curtains of the same material, a good walnut writing table; a very French room. Madame Dupré led me down the hall to my bedroom where I spouted Gallic effusions to express my delight. A big brass bed with a white lace bedspread, a dressing table with a pink satin flounce, frilly white curtains, roses on the carpet, more books, and no hateful mosquito net, screens on the low windows. Madame Dupré hurried out and back, bearing a vase of flowers for the dressing-table. There was plenty of time for a bath and drinks before dinner. She dined at the civilized hour of eight-thirty.

If I had been travelling as a reporter I would have asked all the questions that swarmed to be asked and risked any rebuke; as a lady of leisure I felt I had no excuse to pry at barriers of reserve. Barriers of reserve were everywhere; these isolated people might have been hiding from the cops, concealing dread secrets; personal conversation was taboo. So I learned nothing about anyone including Madame Dupré, not where she came from in France, nor why or how she happened to live on this astounding island. Over an aperitif of gin and grapefruit juice, Madame Dupré did inform me that she had lived here for twelve years and, darkly, there were those who only waited their chance to seize the island from her. I couldn’t imagine who. Jungle forest lined both sides of the rushing river. Her bridge lay at the end of a rough dirt track which branched off from a rough dirt road. The nearest towns were not metropolises and she wasn’t near them anyway. You would have to be immune to claustrophobia or crazy for it to live here.

Madame Dupré said that we were going to have
un souper très léger
as she had not expected company. Delectable cold fish with superb mayonnaise, a casserole of tenderest meat and onions in a sauce flavoured with red wine, perfect green salad, warm banana cake crusted with brown sugar and a soupçon of rum. We spoke French because Madame said she was glad of the opportunity and this allowed me a full range of praising adjectives, from
exquis
to
fantastique.
As I gobbled the glorious food, Madame talked slightingly of her cook,
un imbécile
like all Africans but he knew she would give him
des coups bien durs
if he permitted himself serious stupidities. The serving boy passed the casserole on the wrong side. Madame said to him chattily, “
Imbécile.
Idiot. Black monkey. That is not the way, go around.”

He grinned cheerfully and circled my chair. I was as surprised by this as by the wonder of the meal.

We took coffee, marvellous coffee, in the sitting room. We talked about Africans, the staple topic of conversation for all Europeans. Madame said that, after Independence, she expected to have her throat cut. I thought she must be joking, saw she was not, and asked why with some horror. To rob the house, she explained. It will be easy for them. Do you mean your servants? Oh no, they will disappear as soon as there is trouble. Other Africans from the bush, from the villages. I will shoot a few but they will kill me in the end. Of course it might be that the one who coveted her island would arrange to have her killed quickly.

Pagaille would be total after Independence.
Ils vont se tuer et se manger, tout tranquillement, comme les sauvages qu’ils sont. Chère Madame,
the fool missionaries believe they have made Christians of these black apes; they are too stupid, the missionaries. Then you hate the Africans, you fear them? But no, they are like bad children; if you discipline them strongly, they behave; if not, they will do anything they like. And first of all, they will drink; after that, catastrophe.

Since they were all so convinced that disaster was inevitable, come October and Independence, why didn’t they leave? It was mad: Mr Popper waiting to be poisoned, Madame Dupré waiting to have her throat cut, the owner of Traveller’s Rest waiting for what—rabid gorillas? I wouldn’t have started living in Uganda, I agreed heartily with Sir James Hayes Sadler, the Commissioner around 1900 who decided that this land should belong to Africans, it was not desirable or sensible for European settlement. But I would most definitely pick up and run now, if years of living here had given me no confidence in the local Africans. When I suggested departure to Madame she said, “This is my home. I shall not leave it of my own will.” Then we talked about books, a happier subject.

In the night, I heard snuffling and scuffling noises outside my windows. There are always night noises in Africa and my system had been to think about something else. This was too loud and too permanent. I got my flashlight and looked out through the windowscreen on to the huge back of a hippo, in touching distance; the said hippo was eating up the flower beds along the house wall. As their tremendous mouths, jaws, teeth can cut a man in half, munching flowers seemed rather sweet. I didn’t think saying “Shoo!” would do much good and went back to sleep. In the morning, when I told Madame of this invasion, she said,
“Ils sont détestables, ces bêtes,”
as if talking about rabbits in the lettuce patch. Yes, the river was full of them. She tried putting up a fence but they trampled it down; she tried putting pepper on the flowers but
ces bêtes
seemed to like that even better; she simply didn’t know what to do about hippos in her garden.

I thought then that the British in Fort Portal and Madame Dupré were half cracked. Though Independence in West Africa was inefficient, in no way impressive and in many ways ludicrous, it wasn’t gruesome, it wasn’t deadly. After the whingding for President Tubman, I suspected that Independence would mean much hanky-panky for the benefit of the rulers. Corruption is a lousy way to run a country but not a new technique invented by Africans. Since I am devoted to my own freedom, I didn’t think it just to deny other people theirs; and a basic freedom must be to be bossed by your own kind, not by foreigners.

I was all wrong about Uganda, the Fort Portal people and Madame Dupré were right. They foresaw ruin, they did not foresee anything as barbarously evil as Amin. Independence has been an affliction in Uganda. Above all for the unfortunate Ugandans who expected Independence to bring dignity, prosperity, the good life. The British in Fort Portal surely got away safe but I fear for Madame Dupré.

It will take a long time but some day Africans will sort out their own rulers; no one else can do that. They’d do it quicker if the rest of us kept hands off. Cold War rivalry in Africa, which amounts to competitive bribery of African rulers, hasn’t helped the mass of ordinary Africans. On the contrary.

It was a long long trail a-winding: to Mbarara, to Masaka, along Lake Victoria looking blue and attractive despite the bilharzia snails, to Kampala, back to Jinja and back into Kenya where Joshua brightened immediately. He brightened too soon. My plan was to drive south from Kisumu and enter the Serengeti from the Lake Victoria end. The roads were marked on the map, so why not? Because nobody does if they can avoid it, because it is a hellish way to go. Past Kisii, the dust road branched or seemed to; it didn’t deserve a red line but then maybe we were not on the red line road. I could make no sense of the map. We sat at this ill-defined crossroads in the heat. Two Africans appeared, as they do, like djinns out of a bottle.

“Ask them, Joshua.”

“I say!” Joshua called, kingly, from the passenger seat.

The Africans stood where they were and stared.

“Joshua,
get out and go over to them and ask them in
Swahili,
for God’s sake. Which road goes to Musoma?”

Joshua returned, rather cross from demeaning himself. “They say Yes.”

“What do you mean, Yes?”

“They say Yes this road, Yes that road.”

“It’s impossible, the roads are going in different directions.”

Joshua shrugged. “No good to ask those fellows. Country fellows. Not eddikated. They say Yes so Memsaab is not angry.”

I decided to take the right branch as Lake Victoria had to be somewhere there. It was getting late and we ought to be hurrying but perhaps we were hurrying the wrong way. I had a good-sized knot in my stomach when we came to the river. There were faint blue lines on the map to indicate rivers and had been many before but nothing to warn of this flood. It shouldn’t have been a flood; in an ordinary season it would have been a shallow rivulet, easy to ford. The unusual rains produced this wide swift flowing stream. We had to ford it anyway; we couldn’t get back to Kisii before dark.

“Joshua, take off your shoes and socks and find a long stick and wade in and measure the water. I don’t think it’s too deep to cross, it just looks bad because of the current.”

“I do not swim, Memsaab.”

“Of course not, if you had to swim it would be over your head and the Landrover couldn’t make it. If it’s over your knees, I’m not sure we can do it. Go on, get going.”

“Memsaab, we wait here, soon some country fellows come along, they can step in this water.”

“What country fellows? We haven’t seen anybody for an hour.
Joshua, it’s five o’clock.
Get going.”

He found a good strong stick in the brush beside the road. He walked to the edge of the river and took off his right shoe. Then he stood like a flamingo on one leg and turned a face of woe and fear and said, “I will be drownded.”

I got out, cursing, grabbed the stick and waded in, shoes and all, since I do not have African feet which can walk on anything. The streambed was littered with stones and small rocks and I used the stick for a cane in the current, as much as for a measuring rod. More than halfway across, the water had not covered my knees so we would chance it. Joshua was back in the passenger seat, huddled away from me. I drove very slowly, thinking of all the innards of a motor, Runic sayings about water in the carburettor, water in the spark plugs, how did I know. I held my breath, hoped I was not making waves, hoped we wouldn’t stall in the middle, hoped. When we lumbered out on to dry land I stopped the motor and leaned on the wheel. We had crossed over Jordan but where were we?

“You are too wet, Memsaab,” Joshua said timidly.

“Well, you’re not so that’s all right. I think we’ll be spending the night in the Landrover.”

“Here in this car?” Joshua asked, appalled.

“Not necessarily here but somewhere like here.”

We might as well drive on while daylight lasted. We came to a village with kerosene lamps already lit in the shacks by the road.

“Go and talk to them, Joshua. Ask where we are. Ask if there’s a government resthouse anywhere that we can stay. Ask if there’s food to buy. Ask anything you can think of.”

I was too tired and uncomfortable to care. We could park in this village where we were unlikely to be besieged by lions or hyenas. Numbly I watched Joshua, engaged in a marathon talk fest. It must be Joshua; I couldn’t believe that Swahili was a language requiring ten words for a single word in any other tongue.

“There is!” Joshua announced, beaming.

“There is what?”

“What you say. Resthouse for govermint. Here, up this road. Here is a man with key. You can buy tins, Memsaab, nice sardines. Also one candle for you, one for me. You give me money, I will buy.”

The key man walked ahead; Joshua brought back his loot and we followed to a one-room wood house which would have been fine if I were fully equipped for safari travel. An iron cot with a mattress, a table, a chair, a washstand with bowl and pitcher, all okay but no bedding, no towels, no kerosene for the lamp. Count your blessings, I told myself gloomily, it was far better than sitting up in the Landrover, wet to the knees. Joshua and the key man, a grizzled old boy wearing an antique postman’s cap, stood around muttering.

“What now, Joshua, for heaven’s sake?”

His eyes modestly lowered, Joshua said, “The terlit is the little place back there.”

In the candlelight I changed to dry clothes and unpacked my two sweaters. Sardines by themselves are filling if dispiriting. I had whisky and boiled, bacteria-free water in my thermos, and the thermos cup. I could make a hump, to imitate a pillow, by putting my wet boots and rolled wet trousers under the mattress. I could, thank God, drink and, God willing, get drunk. I could not read.

And so realized that thrillers had saved my sanity. Every night, unnerved by Africa, I escaped into the dream world of cops and robbers; an underground atomic rocket factory in Albania discovered and dismantled by a fearless secret agent; the skilful kidnap from his electronically guarded jungle hideaway of a German super war criminal. I left Africa and moved to Finland and Turkey and Brazil and Egypt in the company of colossally brave and inventive men, bent on important insanity. I had not touched
War and Peace
or Jane Austen. Who would have the energy to cope with a real complex Russia or the wit to enjoy eighteenth-century English provincial society, after a day’s driving on African roads? It was a sombre night on that mattress, drinking whisky from a thermos cup and watching insects cluster around the candle, with no therapeutic thriller to dispel Africa. Drinking oneself to sleep is folly; the morning hangover awaits with sharpened claws.

Musoma had nothing in its favour except a hot bath and after bitter argument since it was past regular hours, breakfast. Before the town sank from morning apathy into motionless afternoon torpor, we needed to buy food. Better get enough for four days, I told Joshua. The hotel-inn-resthouse booklet guaranteed six fully furnished rondavels at Seronera in the centre of the Serengeti Park, bedding, towels, crockery, cooking utensils, but no victuals. My appetite and imagination failed as I walked from one airless little shop to another, collecting tins of soup and cornbeef and vegetables, crackers, cheese, tea, condensed milk, cereal. Lack of foresight must be the foundation of African contentment and though Joshua wasn’t by any means a happy-go-lucky gather-ye-rosebuds-while-ye-may type, he couldn’t think four days ahead. He got a small sack of
posho,
tea and sugar, counting on the Memsaab to stave off starvation.