Snakepit (30 page)

In his present state of mind he could not concentrate on anything. He asked for a leave and devised ways of dodging his guests. He hid at the Professor's a few times. He spent nights at the Kalandas' and in the few still-functioning hotels. He spent long periods talking with his sister. They had become closer than ever now. She listened to his words, his silences, his mumblings. He listened to her stories, her indirect words of advice. They talked about the coming trial, the lawyers, the prospects. She cooked his favourite food, and they ate it with some degree of enjoyment. She devised a system whereby she spent a week per month with him. But he grew tired of waiting for her arrival and he acknowledged his growing dependence on her—a dependence that seemed to be eroding her relationship with her possessive husband. Although he still did not like Mafuta, he knew that he had no right to deprive him of his family life. He put a stop to his sister's visits.

One day he received a letter of condolence from Damon, which was also an invitation to go to London. They could go out and tour the country, revisit the past or do something new. He remembered the nights at the Grand Empire, the posh nights, his proposal to Babit. There was something very appealing and something very repellent about it at the same time. He wanted to retrace his time there with Babit, but he realized that nostalgia would be the death of him. A mourner who returned to the sites of happier times was either reconciled or devastated. He knew that London without Babit was no longer his London and would crush him just like it had done others before him. He decided to go to America for a month.

BAT'S FIRST STOP was an expensive hotel in New York. He liked the seclusion, the anonymity, and the newness of it all. He liked the aggressive thrust of the buildings, the dire extremity of a crowded skyline. He liked the freedom he had from the encumbrances of familiarity, for here he was a speck in this city of millions, a mote flying in the wind. In the bosom of the great city, he sipped his whisky, praying for peace of mind. He settled down and turned on the television, seeking refuge in the deluge of images and sounds.

It was not long before he met Marshal Amin, who had made a grand entrance into Hollywood, and into the world of comic strips. During his stint in Tinseltown the Marshal had made two hit movies, now available on cable, both portraying his mentor, Il Duce Benito Mussolini. The bulk, the shaven head, the jutting jaw, the heavy make-up, the fact that a black giant was portraying a white runt, made for wonderful comedy. Of course, Amin had had to lose weight, shaving off much of the bulky stomach in high-tech gyms and by inserting laxative pills in his rectum. To hide the scandalous height difference, he was filmed from the waist up. In the first epic,
The Rise of Il Duce: Il
Duce's Triumph,
he dealt with the problems young Mussolini experienced on the way up. The pains of growing up on the fringes, his height, his criminality, the rigours of army life, the unfulfilled dreams, the sexual frustrations, the boiling urge to shine, then the coup and the string of victories in Bulgaria, Greece, Abyssinia, and the emergence of Italy as a major power. In the second hit,
Il Duce's Blues,
Amin dealt with his mentor's turbulent career as empire-builder and chronicled the way Europe and America conspired to bring his reign to an end. He showed his mentor's bravery at the front, the fighting methods he initiated but which were credited to Englishmen or Americans, his selfless tours of military hospitals comforting the wounded soldiers with his golden tenor saxophone and the artificial limbs he distributed, his unrecognized efforts to dethrone Hitler, his bitterness at not being universally recognized as a genius statesman. Then there was the demonization by the press, the wives who kept committing suicide, the failure of Fascism to become a household name like Nazism or Stalinism, and his heroic end. The two films had made Amin's name and were already classics, towering achievements for somebody who did not make his acting debut till he was thirty-nine. As a result, he had become Africa's first truly famous film star.

Bat also discovered that here Amin had tried his luck as a sex therapist and small-time political spin doctor, with little success. Too many competitors. He had sent President Nixon advice to gag, lock up, or torture the criminals involved in the Watergate adventure. If they still wanted to fawn for the cameras, he advised gangland executions of culprits and their entire families. The financial invoice he sent Nixon was never honoured. Nixon had other plans, and when he fell, Amin sent him a telegram congratulating him upon his impeachment and the golfing time at his disposal. He offered his services to President Ford, warning him to take a much harder line and avoid the pitfalls of his predecessor.

Bat took to television channel-hopping. He concentrated on sports. He watched American football, boxing and wrestling. He would lie there and watch the scrimmaging, the touchdowns, the charges. He took a liking to the West Coast Destroyers, the Buffalo Blasters and the Dallas Tornadoes. There was a wealth of information about both the teams and the players. It amazed him how many small details the media knew about the players. They knew how many bones somebody had snapped in his career, the bruises suffered, the pounds he bench-pressed daily, his daily calorie intake, the names of his pets, his hobbies, what he did ten Christmases ago . . . He would sit there and play with the data, multiplying it, dividing it, setting up bets as to who would win . . . As long as he kept himself busy, and drugged himself with enough whisky, the Babit trinity left him alone. But when he woke up late in the night, his mind would begin to wander. He would get nasty flashbacks, something that had not occurred in Uganda. He would lie in bed shivering, trying to fix his mind on something else. He rarely succeeded. He would wake up, switch on the television, drink some tea and wait for the day to break or sleep to return.

During the day he would venture out and visit a few famous places. It was soothing to walk through the parks on sunny afternoons, feeling the tender grass under his feet. At one end of the Village, away from the restaurants and residential areas, he discovered a place where extreme spectacles were staged. As a former sportsman, feats of strength, competition, expenditure of energy, turned him on. He kept wondering what some of these guys would be doing if they had been born in Uganda, and what he would be doing if he had been born here. He watched men with ten-foot boa constrictors and one-ton anacondas feeding live alligators to their pets, which had names like Sweetie or Popsy. He saw a man balancing a car on his head. There was a young man juggling three raging chain-saws, and, hard by, rodeo stars were riding snappy two-ton bulls, tasting ten euphoria-laden seconds before the fall. There was always something spectacular to see, to take his mind off his situation, to tire him out so that by the time he returned to his hotel he could sleep for a few hours before the Babit trinity arrived.

After a week his urge to do something dangerous mounted to insupportable levels. On television he saw advertisements of street racing in Chicago. His love for speed kicked in like a fever. He flew to Chicago to participate in the races. He watched the plane rising, the Atlantic Ocean swelling, New York City shrinking and receding, and he felt relieved. He hoped that the nightmares would leave him alone and stay buried in the canyons below him. He thought about his brother, and he hoped he would renounce the violence before his luck ran out. He thought about the Professor and how he would have loved to be here, with the mighty city below him, headed for another one, well away from his students and the tedium of teaching. He made a mental note to give him a two-week holiday in America on his birthday.

Chicago struck him like a dream, something he could have planned mathematically. There was the captivating heights of the skyscrapers, juggernauts with no competition in sight, then the marvellous Great Lakes. Caught in the sunlight, they dissipated like silver flashes into the sky, and seemed to stretch to infinity. They made the city seem to float, a crowded ship manufactured by some delirious inventor and cut adrift to seek its destiny.

Bat installed himself on the hundredth floor of the Omniscient Hotel, where there was no day or night, where one washed one's face with clouds in the morning and dried oneself with the legs of the ubiquitous sun. Up there, he hoped to fool the night and mislead the Babit trinity into passing his suite by. He could look out for miles and feel like a bird flying over the lakes, or dodging in and out of the buildings and the clouds.

For a whole week he went each day to the racing track. There were limitless lines of scrap cars ready for sale with prices ranging from fifty to five hundred dollars per cadaver. You chose one, paid for it and filled it with petrol, then raced and crashed it at the end of the road. There was beauty in the demolition job, with iron tearing, tyres squealing, the crowds cheering, the smell of petrol overpowering, the mangled carcasses towed away, like dead bulls, to be crushed into balls of steel. He would crash four cars a day and return to his hotel bruised, purged, and sleep like a stone.

On the fourth day, however, he arrived at the track feeling down; the Babit trinity had located him and had terrorized him. He was more reckless than usual. The third car overturned. He was pulled out of the wreck with cuts to his face and legs. He was taken to a doctor on a stretcher, but his injuries were minor. He retired to his hotel. In bed, with the wounds and the leg smarting, he realized that he had been intending to cause himself damage for some time. Now that it had occurred, he felt better. He would stretch his leg and hear from muscles he had not heard from since Cambridge. He would turn and hear his body scream with pain. He now had enough distraction to keep his mind occupied. Coupled with the talk shows and sports on television and the whisky, he managed to get by reasonably well. The Babit trinity now visited for shorter intervals. He would wake up, stay in bed, and sleep again.

It was during this time that he saw an advertisement for hunting rifles and another for a shooting school, which claimed to be able to teach you within days. His mind flew back to his days in the Parliament Building and his wish to learn how to handle a gun. He made inquiries and was enrolled in the nearest shooting school, not far from his hotel. Military science and technology had never interested him as such because for most educated people soldiery and anything to do with it is the preserve of barbarians. He applied himself to the theory part of the lessons as if he were doing another degree course. He learned the history, the evolution, and the mechanics of guns. He concentrated on rifles and pistols, the most prevalent weapons in Uganda. The practical part was harder but also more fascinating. He could see his enemies, and what could happen to them after a bullet had entered their hearts. At the beginning the noise gave him headaches. But it was worth it, for a psychological barrier had been broken down. He could somehow empathize with his brother. There were moments when he forgot himself, feeling all-powerful, with the weight of the gun like a key to heaven or hell. It was an exhilaration that neared that of speed. Maybe that was what Tayari felt when setting the bombs.

These were his best days in America. Once a week he got on the phone and talked to the Kalandas, asking about the lawyers. Everything was ready; the trial was about to start. He spent one more week at the shooting school, made one tour of the city and prepared to return home and shoulder his burden.

THE DAY BAT ARRIVED was the day Dr. Ali left Uganda for the last time. The relationship between him and Marshal Amin had broken down. As far as Ali was concerned, he had no more work to do. The main bone of contention was Uganda's southern neighbour: Tanzania. Marshal Amin wanted to attack the country and neutralize the guerrillas who were now and then attacking Ugandan border towns. Dr. Ali had offered sacrifice and the omens had not been good. Despite that, the Marshal wanted to go on with his plan. Dr. Ali had aired his displeasure and warned that Amin was digging his grave, but the Marshal saw no other way out of the stalemate. Amin had then consulted other astrologers, who had given him positive omens. He believed that the Dream could be wrong this time . . . The parting had been acrimonious, with Amin accusing Dr. Ali of exploiting him. He had threatened to close the department of astrology at the university if the astrologer left and to deport all Zanzibari astrologers, but nothing could keep Dr. Ali in the country. He did not mind if astrology disappeared in Uganda; he had many followers elsewhere on the continent and abroad. As his Learjet headed for Zaïre, the astrologer felt delighted; he had played baby-sitter for long enough. Now he was going to sit back and enjoy himself. Mobutu's chances were very good. He had an iron grip on his country and no fear of guerrillas. The astrologer kept thinking that Uganda was like a madwoman of untold beauty; efforts to save her were bound to be doomed. Lovers would come and go, breaking their backs trying to free her from the bonds of hell, but it would finally be left to herself to break the chains.

AS SOON AS BAT RETURNED, he knew that the coming months were going to be tempestuous, to say the least. For the first time he was obliged to get out of his XJ10 at all roadblocks. He endured body and car searches and demands for bribes with a stoic air. He would look at the rifles in the soldiers' hands and feel like emptying magazines into the bastards.

A week after his return his lawyers withdrew from the case. They were reluctant to give the reasons why, but he found out that they had been abducted and their lives threatened by armed men. Bat conferred with the Kalandas and the Professor and they found other lawyers. This was a pretty distressing period, but as one of the principal players in the drama, he had no way out. He gritted his teeth and hoped for the best.

GENERAL BAZOOKA FOUND a new purpose in life when his old lover asked him for help in the murder case. He had always known that Victoria would return. They had been together for so long that the bonds, however aged, would be hard to sever. His original plan had been to engineer her escape from police custody and kill the trial summarily. A prince could get away with it, but his chief advisor, the self-effacing colonel, had cautioned him “to let justice take its course.” He discovered that if he wanted to punish Bat properly, and to spit at the justice system at the same time, he had to let the trial go on. Thus he had let Victoria endure the humiliation of detention. He had nonetheless ordered the police to make life easy for her. She was given her own Nissen hut, where she could look after her child, prepare her own meals, and receive visitors.