The Last King of Scotland (1998) (16 page)

I realize now that she, like me, had been using Gugu to live out some kind of fantasy family life – both of us, aware how things were going downhill at the clinic, must have been craving a kind of normality.

And things at the clinic were going downhill. Waziri had just taken off, we discovered. He never came back from that holiday. I never got the chance to see the Bacwezi grove. Merrit was furious – about Waziri and just about everything. We were finding it more and more difficult to keep the place running. Money came through from Kampala less and less frequently.

Meanwhile, strange items of news were reaching us about Amin. The World Service reported, in its usual po-faced way, that he had sent a message to the Queen, with copies to the UN Secretary-General Doctor Kurt Waldheim, Soviet Premier Brezhnev and Mao Tse-Tung: “Unless the Scots achieve their independence peacefully,” it read, “they will take up arms and fight the English until they regain their freedom. Many of the Scottish people already consider me last King of the Scots. I am the first man to ask the British government to end their oppression of Scotland. If the Scots want me to be their King, I will.”

This kind of thing simply made the place seem more unreal. For me, then and in that place, little reminders of home began to take on enormous importance – like finding a bottle of Bell’s or a packet of cornflakes in one of the Asian shops in town. Though that soon became impossible.

There was worse in store for me, and much worse for the Asians. One day in town, I was shocked to see a group of them surrounded by soldiers. They were scratching their faces with broken bottles.

Amin had said in a speech that the idea of the Economic War had come to him in a dream. “Asians came to Uganda to build the railway. The railway is finished. They must leave now.”

A sign was erected outside one of the government offices in town: ‘Bureau for the Redistribution of Asian Property’. And during that time, a new song was being played on the radio: “Farewell Asians, farewell Asians, you have milked the cow but you did not feed it.”

There was some confusion, initially, about only Asians who weren’t Ugandan citizens having to go, but nearly all went, in the end; 50,000 from the whole country, the BBC said, many to Britain. Amin himself called it Operation Mafuta Mingi, which translates as ‘too much cooking oil’ – a valuable commodity that in this case symbolized Asian dominance in East African commerce.

Everything was to be given over: the Sikh mechanics’ garages where they’d grind a new set of valves for you; the grocers where you’d get English tinned meat; the fabric shops with their bolts of coloured cloth stacked up to the ceiling. Mr Vassanji, the solicitor. The thin-faced GP in town, Doctor Ghose, whose qualifications Merrit used to say were dubious (but who did quite a good job, so far as I could tell). It was all to be ‘allocated’, as the euphemism had it.

When the deadline came, the Asians piled up their belongings in boxes near the bus park ready to go. But the soldiers took most of it, especially watches and cameras, and most of the Asians left for the airport penniless. The worst thing was seeing the Sikhs have their turbans knocked off, and their beards cut with bayonets. I stood by, I know that now – there was nothing I could do, I thought. Not all of the Asians made the deadline, which only increased the brutality, and it was some time before all of those in Mbarara had actually left.

It was during this period that Popitlal, Dr Ghose’s assistant, turned up at the clinic. He had cropped his hair and put boot polish on his face. He wanted us to take him in as an orderly, and go along with the pretence that he was an African. And he was, in so far as these things mean anything: his family had been in Africa for nearly a century. We gave him a cup of tea – he was trembling with fear – while we discussed what to do. He was now a stateless person.

“If he stays, we’ll get into hot water ourselves,” Merrit said.

“We can’t just turn him in,” I said.

Billy Ssegu was the only one of the Ugandans who wasn’t laughing at the boot polish. The Asians weren’t too popular, because of the money. They were close enough to be envied by the poor in a way that the muzungu weren’t. Or so I thought back then.

“I know,” Billy said, “we’ll put him into Rwanda. My brother is an immigration official at the border. He’ll let him through. We can take him up in the Land Rover.”

“Be quick, then,” Merrit said crossly. “I don’t want soldiers turning up here.”

So he took him. I often wonder what happened to Popitlal, what sort of life he made for himself.

As for the others, Major Mabuse simply gave a lot of their businesses to his fellow officers. One restaurant was renamed ‘The Exodus’. With khaki behind the counter, the prices went haywire. A lot of the shops closed, because the import lines of credit from Bombay and elsewhere dried up overnight. Salt, matches, sugar, soap: even the most basic things became hard to get. The army slaughtered a whole herd of milking cows for beef, which meant we had no milk either. And we soon had to abandon our vaccination safaris, being unable to get spare parts for the Land Rover.

Sara wouldn’t say much about it all, simply, “It’s Amin, what do you expect?” and a shrug. At that stage, we weren’t sleeping together at all. You’re a failure, I told myself.

And then, one day, she didn’t turn up at the clinic. When I went down to her bungalow at lunch-time, the door was unlocked. I went inside. Many of her things were gone. Open cupboards and drawers showed signs of hurried packing. I walked slowly back up the hill, feeling wretched and dismal and wondering what I was going to say to Merrit.

It was the beginning of October, and I remember sitting that night listening to the radio while I fretted about her. At their conference in Blackpool, the Conservatives had just defeated Enoch Powell’s motion condemning the government for allowing the expelled Ugandan Asians into the country.

Given the Asian scenario, I should have known, following Amin’s announcement about Zionist imperialists and their ‘secret army, six-hundred-strong’, that Sara would go too. But I wasn’t prepared for it. He seemed to me to be mainly attacking a sect of black Ugandan Jews called the Malakites, perhaps the ones Waziri had mentioned, as much as Israel herself. Once I had pieced it all together, I felt foolish, deficient in an almost physical way – it had all been there before my very eyes.
1 should have known
, that is the phrase of my life, its summing up, its consummate acknowledgement.

She still could have said goodbye, though. I suppose she was afraid I would try to stop her. Nestor, it transpired, had actually seen her go. “The men from the road gang, bwana. They came to take her in a jeep at sunrise. The people say all the tractors, they went over the mountain to Rwanda. Amin says all Israeli personnel to leave within three days.”

So I could only imagine her going. Perhaps it was less painful that way. Standing watching the yellow graders go into the sun. The graders and the jeeps and the wide-mouthed bulldozers.

O
ddly, once Sara had gone, the problem with my ears came back. It must have been an infection after all, and I began a course of antibiotics again. It was also about this time that the stories about Amin began to fascinate me. And when, with my gummy ears, I heard him calling himself the last rightful King of Scotland again on the radio, I thought, in a wild moment, that it had some special relevance for me. As if I were his subject.

Meeting him in person for the first time, when the soldiers came to call for me at the bungalow, and I had to go and bind his sprained wrist – that was a bizarre experience. The cow he had hit lay bleeding on one side of the road, its gasps loud amid the murmurs of the soldiers and the birdsong of the bush. Nearby, nose-deep in vegetation, was the red Maserati. On the other side, no less impressive a spectacle, sprawled Idi Amin Dada. Even on his back he was physically dominating. I felt as if I were encountering a being out of Greek myth – except, I must confess, for his smell, which was a rancid mixture of beer and sweat.

He held his hand in the air, muttering Swahili curses as I wound the fabric round. Then I began checking him for concussion, fractures, signs of internal bleeding. I was in professional mode, but I couldn’t help feeling awed by the sheer size of him and the way, even in those unelevated circumstances, he radiated a barely restrained energy. As my hands moved over his body, undoing the buttons of his camouflage battledress, and touching his chest and abdomen, I felt – far from being the healer – that some kind of elemental force was seeping into me.

Suddenly, he shouted something, his voice loud in my ear. But it wasn’t directed at me, being simply an instruction to the soldiers. They began pushing the Maserati back on to the road. The bonnet was deeply dented, but the engine started when one of the soldiers tried it.

I returned to my checks, trying to concentrate. I was gentle with him, worried that his incomprehensible grumbles – occasionally punctured by the English word ‘stupid’ – might explode into anger.

Once I had finished attending to him, however, he was charm itself. And Anglo-fluent once again; it was as if, in treating him, I had given him back the words.

“My dear Doctor Garrigan,” he said, grabbing hold of my shoulder with his good hand as he clambered up. “Thank you very much indeed. This calls for a celebration.”

He barked in Swahili at one of the soldiers. The man went over to the car. Idi – Amin, I should say – followed him slowly, and I followed Amin. Leaning into the boot, the soldier emerged with a bottle of Napoleon and a stack of steel tumblers. We watched as the man balanced two of the tumblers on the dented bonnet and filled them to the top with brandy. I noticed his hand was trembling as he poured – he was terrified.

“You know,” Amin said, taking one of the tumblers and handing it to me, “every president has a bar in his car. Cheers!”

He took a deep gulp. I sipped nervously, reduced to a state of hopeless perplexity. I was drinking with Idi Amin, on a dirt road on a burning hot day, standing next to a pranged sports car, with a dying cow a few feet away. I noticed that one of the beast’s horns had snapped off and was lying in the middle of the road, like a projectile fallen from the sky.

I realized that Amin was studying me closely. “This is excellent brandy,” I blurted.

“Well, you know what they say in Swahili,” he boomed. “Mteuzi haishi tamaa. A connoisseur never comes to the end of desire.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t drink too much.”

The sound of a shot made me jump. I looked round quickly. A soldier was climbing off the cow, a revolver in his hand.

Amin chuckled. “Do not be afraid, he is just putting it out of its misery.”

“Poor thing,” I said.

“It is only meat…they can take it back to the barracks.”

He paused, and then assumed a pose of some formality. “Now, I would like to thank you for coming at such short notice. Public opinion maintains that a gentleman is judged by his actions – and on that front you are most definitely a gentleman.”

“It was the least I could do,” I said.

“I would like you to have something as a token of my gratitude,” he said. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a bundle of shilling notes and thrust them towards me. “Here.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” I said, taking a step back.

“Ability is wealth, Doctor Garrigan. You should take advantage of your skills.”

“I only bound your wrist,” I said.

He frowned and turned away, staring into a tall clump of elephant grass by the side of the track. I wondered whether I had said something out of turn.

And then he spoke again. “Maybe you should come and work for me on a more permanent basis. Because, you know, he who tastes honey makes a hive – yes, he who dips his finger into honey does not want to dip it once only.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I said. The brandy was making me feel dizzy.

“I’d make it worth your while,” he said. “You’ve obviously got a very good brain. Well, I have, too – but brains are like shoes. Everyone has his own kind. Yours is the one of the medical, mine of the military. It is like…a barber does not shave himself. If he does so, he will cut himself.”

“That’s true enough,” I said, “but I’m happy in my job here.”

“As you wish,” he said. “I will speak to my Minister of Health, in any case. Now I have to go and speak to the chiefs of this area. They are very backward, so I have to tell them everything twice. Some of them even wear Wellingtons when presiding at trials.”

He straightened suddenly, almost coming to attention. “Well, goodbye, doctor – and my best thanks again.”

“Goodbye,” I said, going to shake his hand and then realizing it was the bandaged one.

He smiled and got into the vehicle, bending under the low rim of the door. “This car has a good engine. It can survive crashes.”

I saw the white of his bandaged hand resting on the steering wheel, and wondered whether he would be able to drive OK.

“I will see you again,” he said. “Of this I am sure.”

He looked up at me from the car, something unfathomable – half-fascinating, half-frightening – in his eyes as he spoke.

“Doctor Garrigan, when you make your decision, remember this: water flows down into a valley, it does not climb a hill.”

“I will,” I mumbled, finding it hard to focus because of the brandy and the sunlight reflecting off the shiny red car. My pericranium glowed like a stove-hob.

Amin wound up the window and started the engine. After a couple of throaty revs, the Maserati pulled off and went some way down the track. Then it came to a sudden halt and reversed back towards me with a high-pitched whine.

Down came the glass. “And if water is spilt, it cannot be gathered up.”

Without a word of further explanation, he sped off again. Confused and slightly drunk, I stood there as the soldiers heaved the body of the cow into one of their jeeps and prepared to follow him. I watched them go off. Only as the last vehicle was obscured by a baobab did I realize that I had no way of getting back myself. It was quite a long walk home.