Where the Air is Sweet (24 page)

“Doctor Sahib,” Raju says, turning away, “you are lost.”

“We are all lost,” Amir says.

Raju pushes air through his nose. A laugh. Almost a laugh.

The next morning, a messenger summons the men to the district commissioner’s office. When they arrive, each is welcomed
with smiles and handshakes. Besides the district commissioner, the commanding officer of the Simba Battalion is there, as well as the commander of the Mbarara Police, the commanding officer of the prison and the town clerk. Three other Asians are at the office. Raju knows them, though not well: two Ismaili brothers and a Sikh contractor.

“You are true citizens of Uganda,” the district commissioner says. “Because you have chosen to remain in this country after your kinsmen have gone.”

The Asians are issued re-entry permits; they can leave Uganda and come back in at will. Their homes and businesses have been handed over or sold. Their bank accounts are frozen. Everything they owned up to now is no longer theirs. They must have their identity cards ready to be presented at all times. But, says Brigadier Abdul Fattah, laughing, patting Raju’s back, “True Ugandans. True Ugandans.”

In the following days, the roadblocks are removed. The few soldiers walking on the street glance only briefly when they pass Raju. He ought to breathe freely. And yet he cannot. Each day his lungs feel as though they can take in less air, as though they are shrinking, or the air is becoming thicker.

“After that talk and all the warnings,” Raju says as they eat breakfast, “why is the army being so friendly?”

“Because they won. How many of us are left?” Jaafar says. “A handful in Mbarara, probably fewer than a hundred in all of Uganda. I think if thousands had stayed it would be different, much different. We’re nothing now. Weak, poor, powerless. I think they enjoy seeing us. We are a reminder of their victory. Crazy, isn’t it? They like us now. They love us.” Jaafar and Amir laugh. Raju is quiet.

Later that morning, Jaafar speaks to Mumtaz on the telephone. When he is finished, he hands the phone to Raju. She tells him she and the children are staying in Hobbs Barracks, in a place called Surrey, in Newchapel. She tells him the flight was terrible. The plane was packed and she couldn’t sit with the children. They each sat alone, between strangers, one in front of the other. When they reached London, they travelled by bus from the airport to Hobbs Barracks. She can’t be sure how long the drive took. She felt as though she were suspended in space, chilled, everything outside the window black.

“Your coat wasn’t warm enough?”

“Our coats were fine. The bus was heated. I was cold from the inside out. Anyways, they were giving out coats and hats at the airport. New clothes. They even served tea and offered pocket money. I had the tea but didn’t take the money or clothes. We have enough.”

Mumtaz describes the barracks. She tells him there are about seven hundred other Asians housed there; Shama and Karim have no shortage of playmates. She has a small, clean, heated room with two beds and a window. The washrooms are large and shared.

“It reminds me of living at boarding school. It’s better than I expected. Though I don’t know what I expected. A captain is in charge of the barracks. But otherwise soldiers are not walking around. Thank God. There is fresh milk. It tastes different, but the children like it. Three times a day we eat in a large cafeteria. They serve English food.” She begins laughing. “Shama expected mashed potatoes to taste like
ugali.
But she wasn’t disappointed when they didn’t.”

The next morning, Raju meets Jaafar in town. They have come to meet Mubinga to discuss his payment plan for Rajabali Auto Repairs. Raju is standing on the curb in front of the garage, Jaafar beside him. He sees army officers walking with two men in suits towards the locked door of an abandoned Asian business. One of the officers turns. It is Al-Bashir. He calls Jaafar over.

“Our tools are rubbish,” he says. “Bring a better tool from the garage.” He does not say
your garage.

Jaafar walks into Rajabali Auto Repairs and emerges minutes later with a cutting torch. He breaks whichever lock he is asked to break. He keeps his head lowered. Raju walks a few feet behind Jaafar. He looks at the sign on each window and lets himself imagine who used to own the business, whose father built it, whose son sat behind the counter, whose children played out front.

Al-Bashir thanks Jaafar and invites them to the barracks.

That evening, Raju, Jaafar and Amir have dinner at the officers’ mess at the Simba Battalion. The room is spacious: about fifteen tables are covered with white linens and a long bar runs along one wall. The wood is dark and polished. Raju had no idea anything this posh existed in Mbarara. The selection of food is impressive. European and African fare, everything from roast chicken to
matooke.
Al-Bashir shows them a shop in the barracks. He tells them they are welcome to purchase anything they like. The shop sells top-of-the-line cameras, projectors, stereo equipment, foreign-made clothes and alcohol. The alcohol is European, imported, like everything in the shop. Raju has never seen so many foreign goods in any shop in Mbarara, even in Kampala.

When they leave, Jaafar is clutching a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label in one hand and a bottle of Chivas Regal in
the other. Amir is carrying a bag with more bottles of liquor. Al-Bashir laughs.

“Come back for more,” he tells them. “Anytime.”

Jaafar is grinning. A boy in a toy store. A boy in a sweet store. Raju feels as though he has fallen into a hole and emerged in another world. A world he cannot recognize. One stipulation, the major says. Don’t let people see the stickers on the bottles, the ones reading NAAFI, otherwise they will know these are army issue. That night, Jaafar fills the bathtub with water and lets the bottles soak overnight. The next morning the NAAFI stickers slide off. Yozefu lines up the bottles on the long, mahogany buffet. A display of liquor in Raju’s home. He looks at the bottles, at the light glinting off the glass, and says nothing.

Jaafar insists they visit the officers’ mess regularly. “It is the best restaurant in town,” he says.

“And you need to stock up on alcohol,” Raju adds. But Jaafar does not hear him.

Raju sits having dinner in the officers’ mess one evening, Jaafar beside him. A young second lieutenant has joined them. The officer is fond of listening to music. He is telling the men about stereo equipment in the shop, equipment that he will keep in the house he will soon own. Raju looks at Jaafar. He is staring into his glass of beer. Raju cannot look at the officer. He knows the house he speaks of may be his house, his son’s house, any number of his friends’ houses. Jaafar begins talking quickly, about his stereo, his Lenco turntable, his Sansui receiver, his Akai reel-to-reel and speakers. “My elder brother wanted all of it,” he says, lying. “So he had it shipped overseas.” Jaafar does
not tell him that he has sent it to his wife so that he can use it when he lives in his new home in Canada.

The officer begins to laugh. “It won’t reach your brother.”

Early the next morning, Jaafar and Raju drive to Entebbe. As Jaafar pulls the car up to the cargo side of the airport, Raju sees boxes, crates and packages strewn about. It looks as though a typhoon has ripped through the area. Jaafar parks the car. They step out and find a Uganda Transport Company employee at the counter. Jaafar hands him a wad of shillings. “I want my crate returned.” The man shakes his head. “Then I want to ensure it is sent.”

“We have been told to send nothing.”

“Not one parcel was posted?” Jaafar asks.

“Some parcels were sent earlier, but nothing for months,” the man says. “The army, customs officials, State Bureau men open them, take what they want, when they want.”

“I brought mine only one week ago. It may be untouched.”

“These people are dangerous. I don’t want trouble from them.”

Jaafar steps closer to the man, his face flushing. “For God’s sake, man,” he says. “I paid air-freight fees to have my crate flown out and I’m paying you now, again.”

The man takes the cash. “On the west side. Those arrived in the last days before the deadline.” He does not look at Jaafar or at Raju when he speaks.

They walk through the rows of empty, ripped-open crates. Raju helps Jaafar look for the address label, to the Uganda Resettlement Board in the United Kingdom, to Mumtaz. Like
other Asians, they had no forwarding address, no destination. They cannot find the label. And they cannot find one crate, one parcel that has not been opened and emptied.

Ten days ago, Raju watched as Mumtaz packed her Singer sewing machine, their clothes, shoes, Rehmat’s shawls, Jaafar’s record collection, the stereo equipment, wooden vases, wooden spoons and bowls, zebra skins, Ankole cattle horns, ivory tusks, drums and masks that have decorated their house for years, and hundreds of photographs. Finally, Mumtaz packed her camera. Raju watched her hold it, stare at it.

“Pack it in your suitcase,” he told her.

She shook her head. “There isn’t enough space.”

Raju looks around at the shattered, empty boxes and sits down in the midst of them. “There’s nothing here. Only garbage.”

“I thought some parcels wouldn’t make it,” Jaafar says. “Some things would be taken from others. Some would be lost.” He looks at Raju. “I did not imagine this.”

Before returning to the car, Jaafar tells Raju he wants to stop at the counter.

Raju shakes his head. “It is pointless.”

Jaafar ignores him and walks towards the employee. “Why did they take our photographs?” he asks the man.

“It is a rush when they come,” he replies. “They are not selective. They hardly even look at what’s in their hands.”

Raju sees the small girl again. When she reaches him, she stops, looks up at him and holds her hand out. Two boys stand behind her. They are older, ten or eleven. Her brothers perhaps. The
three children wait, staring at Raju, the girl’s hand suspended in the air. But Raju’s pockets are empty. He smiles and shakes his head. They walk past him. One of the boys turns around and sneers, pulls out the twig that was in his mouth and throws it on the ground. He does not throw it at Raju or near Raju. But Raju becomes enraged. He wants to pull the boy back and slap him, throw him to the ground. He wants to kick him and beat his face until it is bloodied, until it cannot be recognized. Instead, he returns home and resolves never to walk on that footpath again, never to walk through the streets of Mbarara alone again.

The days stretch endlessly. Raju dreads the mornings now. He sleeps longer to pass the time. His sons spend their days either on the verandah or in the sitting room. Amir has begun to drink liquor with Jaafar. Raju sits quietly while they talk, slurring, swearing, laughing. After a while he begins to notice them press their mouths shut when he walks into the room. He sees them exchange looks. He spends more and more time alone on the back verandah, writing in his small notebook, recounting the faces of his childhood friends, the details of his cousin’s wedding, his own wedding. He struggles in the kitchen to make
chaas.
Yozefu cannot make it the way Rehmat or Mumtaz made it, no matter how much Raju tries to direct him. But Raju cannot either. The men eat lunch later and later. Raju spends the afternoons lying on his bed, unable to sleep, thinking of the times he turned away from Rehmat, the minutes, the hours, the days he refused to speak to her. One day, he counts each moment he withheld his love from her, each moment he rejected hers. If he could
have them back, he would have months with her. He would have years. He reaches his arms out to the empty side of the bed, begging silently, foolishly, for those moments. For her.

Four weeks after the deadline, Jaafar tells Raju the Asian shops have begun to open again, their new African proprietors working behind the counters.

“The shelves in all the shops are mostly empty. Asians bought up everything before leaving and no one ordered new stock in the last days.”

“The new owners are not ordering more?” Raju asks.

“Even if they knew how, there are no suppliers. Manufacturing has stopped. Almost every factory, warehouse, tea estate, coffee plantation, sugar plantation, refinery, mill, pharmaceutical business has shut down. Owners, managers, foremen and technicians have left. Skilled labour is gone.”

“Soon, there will be no soap, sugar, medicine,” Raju says.

“They’ll need to go to Kenya for supplies. It’s good for the Kenyan shilling. A disaster for the Ugandan. For everything Ugandan.”

“Who are the new owners? People who applied through that Departed Asians Board?”

Jaafar laughs. “From what I see, the businesses and houses are all being handed to soldiers and their relatives. They walk down the street and take this and that. Whatever they want.”

Jaafar has yet to receive any of his remaining payment from Mubinga for the garage. “Next month,” Jaafar tells Raju.
“Maybe six weeks.” Mubinga is not holding back, Jaafar explains. It is difficult to do business, to turn a profit. “But we are running out of cash. I must think of a way to make money to meet our day-to-day living costs.”

Not since he was a small child has Raju depended on another to feed him. “What if he can’t pay us for months?” he asks.

“He’ll pay it.”

“But if it costs us more to live here than what he owes us, perhaps it is better—”

“Things are safer here than we thought they would be,” Jaafar says quickly. “Maybe we can find a way to stay.”

Raju is quiet.

“Do you really want 50,000 shillings to be all you have to show for your life in Uganda?” Jaafar asks.

“Would it be?” Raju asks. “Would it be all I have to show?”

Raju sees Jaafar’s nostrils flare, his eyes widen momentarily. He is annoyed. He has grown impatient.

Raju nods, feeling for the first time in his life a need to please his son. “All right,” he says. “Let’s give Mubinga some time.”

The next day, Jaafar tells Raju he stopped in at Barclays and found he could access his bank accounts. They have not yet been frozen. The personal and business accounts have little money. In the three months before the deadline, business at the garage dwindled to almost nothing and the cost of airplane tickets and airfreighting and all the spending frenzies depleted much of what was in the bank. But he tells Raju that he can take money out for others, those who had substantial amounts of money they were forced to leave behind. He starts making phone calls, asking around.