The Last King of Scotland (1998) (40 page)

I stopped on the pavement and watched them go by – and then I saw something which made me fear for my own life. The crowd suddenly turned in on itself. Losing the rhythm of its slow jog, it started to contract and expand about a single point. I couldn’t see anything but a whirl of clothing. The Tanzanian soldiers turned round and tried to break it up.

But they were too late. Suddenly an arm rose above the mêlée, flung up into the air. It spun round like a stick, and then fell back down into the threshing mass of bodies. Horrified, I realized that somebody was being torn limb from limb.

“It is an Amin fellow,” said a young girl standing on the kerb beside me. I could hardly hear her above the noise of the crowd. She was talking to a friend. Both were wearing maroon gymslips and cream blouses: the uniform of one of the big Kampala schools. As I watched the confusion in front of me, I strained to hear their voices.

“He would have been luckier if the Tanzanians had got him.”

“It will be like this for a while now. Until the gogolimbo has passed.”

“What is that?”

“It is the bad spirit that has come over this place. My grandmother says that it will only go away when you see a dog and a goat riding a bicycle together.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me. Nothing would surprise me now.”

“It will be all right, though. Not now, perhaps, but at some point it will all be back to normal.”

“We’ll be able to get married.”

“Are you kidding? All the good men are dead.”

“Not all of them.”

“Most.”

“Did you hear about Cecilia?”

“What about her?”

“She was raped by a soldier. I saw her in the street. She looked very bad. Walking painfully.”

“It is a horrible thing. A gun can make men very pleased with themselves.”

“Look at that poor man! There is hardly anything left of him.”

“Don’t be sad. Like I said, this era will be over soon.”

“You think so? I am not so sure. I have my doubts.”

“About what?”

“About the new leaders. I am apprehensive.”

“No, you’re not. You’re pessimistic. We must have hope if we are to be saved…”

Passing so close that one of its handlebars nearly hit me in the ribs, a droning, low-powered scooter snapped me out of my daze. Annoyed, I watched it weave through the crowd. Leaving the two girls talking, I found myself carried along by the mob. It was converging on Amin’s city residence at Nakasero, which the Tanzani-ans were in the process of searching.

When the crowd got there, the guards tried to prevent them coming in, jamming the wooden doors against the wall of bodies. I saw Colonel Kuchasa among the people on the steps, shouting and waving a revolver around. He had discarded his spear and was wearing Amin’s cowboy holster around his waist. I recognized the gun which he was holding: the silver revolver. And then the doors gave way and the crowd poured in. I followed, the tails of my surgical gown flapping behind me.

I
am Idi Amin at Holyrood. I am walking the echoing corridor. My mind shuttles between past and present as the lights on the walls fizz and rustle. It is the sound of electricity, the sound of electricity meeting damp. My footsteps echo in front of me and behind me. I am like a ghost in my green gown
.

The north-west tower. I am Idi Amin standing gleeful as Rizzio dies, lam Idi where Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, gives birth to the one who will unite the realms. I am Idi walking on the gravel, watching it all recede, watching it where Jamie the Saxt watches it from his carriage as he departs for London. The window is chapped with frost…At Musselburgh we’ll stop for the funeral of Lord Seton, at Berwick they’ll sound the guns for us, in Buckinghamshire one Oliver Cromwell, landowner, will feast us royally…

I am Idi walking with Cromwell in the stables of the Palace. It is years later. The smell of blood, excrement and steel is everywhere. It is the smell of occupation. It is the smell of electricity
.

Yes, I am Idi Amin at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. I am Idi as Prince Charlie, carousing smoothly under these high roofs. A few nights of pleasure. His round back massive as the Rock. I am Idi Amin as Cumberland the persecutor, swordflashing silver in his hand
.

I am running. I am running away from the lights with their smell of blood. I am Idi running on the track at Meadowbank. You should know that I can run 100 yards in 9.8 seconds. I am Idi pressed hard against the metal starting gates at Musselburgh. I am riding a horse called African Pard and I will make all the running. Because I am running. I am Idi running with lion and elephant in the Botanic Gardens. I stumble on melons as I pass. Agave and araucaria, canna Hikes and the heavy, sticky petals of angel trumpets catch at my face and hands. I put them up. I put them up because I am Idi Amin boxing at the Sparta Club in McDonald Road. I am Idi Amin sparring with Kenny Buchanan
.

You must know that in boxing, when the referee is against you, the only thing to do is to win by knockout
.

Now I am running across Waverley Bridge. The light is in front of me but goes away with every panting step. I am Idi stepping across the Union Canal. What are those rocks? Those rocks are crocs. I am Idi at the Tron Kirk, and I am Idi spitting on the cobbled Heart of Midlothian in front of St Giles. No, I’m not: I am Idi watching himself at the Film-house in Lothian Road- I am a real bit-part, a gun-happy mercenary in the film
Zenga.
Or I am Idi at Murrayfield. You should know that pushing is very hard, and that with my speed and way of getting the ball, when you tackle me you should harm yourself
.

I am Idi at Dalmeny, I am Idi at Comely Bank. I am Idi at Dalkeith, I am Idi at Corstorphine. I’m Idi at Marchmont, Merchiston and Muirhouse. I am Idi at Juniper Green. I am Idi down in the schemes, walking among the poor, and I am Idi at Morningside. I wish I was somewhere else. I wish I was somewhere else because I am somewhere else. I am walking along the corridor between his bedroom and those other rooms…

∗

For that is how it was. Along with the rest of the crowd, slipping in with the looters and the sightseers, I had tumbled from chamber to chamber in the presidential residence at Nakasero. I’d had to press myself against the wall as they’d brought the furniture down the stairs: dressers, wardrobes, a rocking chair. I had seen the portrait of Lumumba go by at an angle, the martyr’s face bisecting a chandelier and a rack of guns in the space beyond the staircase. I had seen cameras and sports equipment, including a whole multigym, dismantled piece by piece, come down the stairs. I had seen telex machines and telephones, night-vision binoculars and Racal two-way radios. I had seen rhino and kudu horns and rugs made from the skins of ocelots and jackals. I had seen bottles of specially made whisky with Amin’s face on them. I had seen trays of pellet-shooting pens. I had seen attache cases with tape recorders inside. I had seen 240 suits and uniforms on wide-shouldered hangers, and I had seen a large boxful of exploding paperback books.

All these things, as the wananchi rushed out noisily with their new belongings, I had seen come down the stairs.

And then I had climbed them. I had gone into his bedroom. Evidently one of the first places they had lighted on, it looked as if there had been a fight in there. The water-bed had been punctured, there was water everywhere. Nearly everything else had been lifted, fingered or ransacked, including the chests of drawers. The vanity unit was gone, the television was gone, the escritoire was gone. And now all was quiet, except for the shouts and whoops from other rooms.

While I was in there, the curtains blew out of the window suddenly, where the pane had been smashed. The fabric was whipped out by the wind as I watched. It made me think of Gottfried Lessing in his car when the RPG hit it: as they ignite, RPGs create a vacuum in their local atmosphere. The air would have been sucked out of his lungs.

One of the few things left untouched was the bookshelf with the long run of the
Proceedings of the Law Society of Uganda
. It gleamed gold and red, gold and red and irresistible. Suddenly alone, I looked around furtively. Two men passed by the doorway, struggling with a rolled-up carpet. I saw them behind me in the mirror. And then I was alone again, and I pressed the book door and it opened with a neat click. And so I crossed the threshold and was standing again in another part of my history.

I
pushed the door closed behind me and walked down the steps. Now I was in the damp passageway and the smell of electricity was in my nostrils. The strip lights were flicking on and off. I stood there for a moment, unsure whether to go back or forward.

I walked on. The tunnel smelt mustier than before. I could hear, farther down it, the indistinct sound of a voice talking. I walked in the direction of the voice, the slap of my feet loud on the concrete.

Reaching the entrance to the chamber, I hesitated – and then went in. The place was deserted, so far as I could see, and there was now no noise except for the intermittent hiss of radio static from the banks of communications equipment in the glass booth. There were no operators inside, just a pair of headphones hanging on the back of a chair. Then I saw, reflected back from one of the alcoves in the glass wall, an appalling sight.

On a wooden table in the alcove stood a brown earthenware plate. Next to it lay a bag of rough wool. On the plate stood, or sat, a severed head. Its neurovascular bundles were clearly visible, gleaming where they trailed over the edge of the plate. The hair was frosty with ice.

In a chair behind the table sat Idi Amin. He was wearing a large British admiral’s hat. Its tricorn shape made a strange shadow theatre on the wall behind. His jowls were heavier than normal and the skin under his eyes was grey and baggy. He was holding a small staff- a swagger stick.

I stood there, unseen in my surgical gown behind the partition, and as I stood there the voice I had heard in the corridor came again. It was Idi’s, and he was addressing the head.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I know now I have spent much time worshipping false things. That I should have to make my confession here in this place. In your faith. Though I must stress again that I love all three religions in Uganda: Catholic, Moslem and Protestant. But that is the problem here in Africa today. Everything is broken up completely. Even in the ordinary brain in my head. There, it is true that the soldiers come at me again and again. They come at me, they come at me in my dreams and in my waking times, and they do bad deeds too much.

“That is why I had to hurt you. That is why I had to chop off your head. That is also why we had to kill Mr Lion and Mr Elephant for food in Mweya and Paraa. And expel Jesus from Uganda as a whole. Because the danger – the danger of hunger, and the danger of guns, and the danger of ill health – it is there all times. Danger…Even when you think it is a good gift put into your hands, it can be a danger poison. I say to the muzungus – bring me a banana, and they say, “Yes, boss,” and they bring it and it is not good. It is rotten. So I am getting angry. That is why there are bodies. I say, “Burn them thoroughly,” but still it is not good. Ah, I tell you: it was not always this way, but always it was hard. That is why I had to be in charge completely in Uganda…”

He looked into the distance with a large, numb smile on his face. He pushed up the tricorn hat and shifted in his chair. The movement allowed the silhouette of the head to fall on the plaster behind him.

“You see, I come from a very poor family. I want to tell you this. From where I came, my father had no money. I am to work digging and some people give me money for food. And then I studied hard. But then I was taken by force into the army and I was in Kenya during the Second World War and Mau Mau. After I fetched to Burma with the Scottish regiment and I had gone through difficulties, I got the rank of lance-corporal – and up till now when I became general and President. It has been a long struggle and it is because it has been a struggle that I am what I am.”

I remembered Idi’s impassive countenance at the moment I had seen the knife go into Waziri. I remembered Angol-Steve, the rope grasping his neck to death, his ragged shins.

Idi continued, hitting his boot with the swagger stick as he spoke: “Yet I am not so bad. People keep saying I am Hitler. Why do they keep on Hitler? The Hitler problem is now past tense. The war from Hitler is a different war from today. I know things, though. I know that the Israelis tried to poison the waters of the Nile to be killing me. That is one reason why people are fighting towards me: because I know many things. In no book are these things written except in my head. When I hear the voice, it is the voice of the god speaking and I know that it speaks the truth and is meaningful and I must follow it. The same voice comes to all great leaders. If you were to follow General de Gaulle, who is a great leader, and Napoleon, who is a great leader, and Mao Tse-Tung, who is a great leader – you would hear this same voice.

“It is true that sometimes I mishear it – I know I have done bad – but I am still fighting for people all over the world and in Britain and her Empire especially. If it wasn’t for the British press, my reputation would be different. They were inventing anything about me. They reported any rumour. Things were done in my name, without my knowledge, and I was blamed for them. Soldiers are soldiers, and I could not go to the ministries all of the time. I didn’t know what to do. I was taught to fight. That is all. If I am a naughty boy, it is because I am a simple soldier. And because I have been abandoned, kicked at and trampled on.”

I thought of Gugu, his chest opening up in front of me, and then of the other kidogo, the one at Mulago. At that instant Idi stood up suddenly, and started pacing round the chamber with the staff under his arm.

“Do you miss Kampala,” he said then, turning back to the head, “up in that heaven of yours? I know that I shall miss it, when I have to go. Because Kampala is a city I love too much. And I know that it loves me: I feel greatly the warmth it feels for me. Believe me, I am greatly moved when the people cheer me. As for the aggressors, I don’t care who is going to raise trouble: I am going to deal with him very squarely…”