Moses Isegawa - Snakepit

“You are not going to get away with this,” she said heatedly. It looked as if she was about to spring and choke him.

“With what?” he said disdainfully.

“Whoring.”

“I don’t remember visiting a single whore in my whole life,” he said as if to himself.

It occurred to him to lead a trade delegation to Saudi Arabia and get away from the stress. General Bazooka was bogged down with suppressing a revolt in the army. The Lugbaras, Amin’s former favourites, had rebelled since being dropped in favour of the Nubians and Kakwas. They had made a coup attempt, storming the presidential palace with guns and bombs. Now the Hammer, as they called the General, was taking them apart, with the help of the Eunuchs. Bat decided to go to Saudi Arabia.

“Answer me. I am talking to you,” Victoria said, rising from the sofa. In the blink of an eye, she was standing over him, her index finger aimed at his eyeball. It amused him and he almost laughed. The last woman to beat him was his biology teacher during his secondary-school days. He slapped the finger away and ordered her to sit down. She refused. He remembered that he knew nothing about her and had resisted the urge to run a check on her. He had assumed that his status as a high-ranking civil service official would protect him from government conspiracies. After all, was he not the saviour of the Ministry of Power and Communications? Where would General Bazooka be without him? he thought to himself, as if to vindicate his course of action, his complacency. He stood up, pushed her away, and ordered her never to raise her voice at him again.

Blind with rage, she slapped him on the temple. It did not hurt very much, his eyes did not water, and neither did his head rock or his knees buckle. But Bat saw it as a revelation of Victoria’s true colours. A wave of fear coursed through his chest. What did I get myself into? he thought, remembering the toast he made to risk, to adventure, the evening they met. He pushed her away and ordered her to leave his house.

Victoria wondered if she had gone too far. But what was going too far when the General had put him at her disposal? Surely a slap was in order. It was better than a hammer, a panga slash, a gun blast. Why did he not make a fight of it and slap back? Maybe we would have rolled on the floor and finally ended up in each other’s arms. What Victoria forgot was that Bat was not seeing her as a Bureau agent, bearer of life-and-death powers, but as a helpless woman living in his house, under his generosity.

“I am not going anywhere,” she said defiantly, fists balled, breathing hard from internal exertion.

“If you can do what you have just done, it means you are capable of a lot more things I don’t know about. These are troubled times, Vicki. Anyone is capable of anything. To avoid trouble in the future, I want us to part when we can still bear to look at each other.”

“You are my first love. You performed a miracle and I bore a child. You can’t escape your destiny, the role God cut out for you.”

At the mention of God, Bat became suspicious. Which God did she mean: the Christian one or Dr. Ali? Had she consulted the famous astrologer or one of his assistants? Where had she gotten the money? When? He dismissed the idea. She probably meant the Christian God.

“I want you to leave in the morning. You deserve a better life.”

Victoria burst into tears. She asked for forgiveness. When she tried to use the child as a shield and a weapon, Bat had a sudden attack of doubt. He could take the child away from Victoria and give it to his mother to raise, assisted by hired help or another relative. But it would scar her; she was still too young. It was best to let her stay with Victoria, but what kind of world was he sending his daughter into? What kind of men and women were going to influence her? He experienced a sense of failure. Had he not failed by not pressing for an abortion? Abortion in a land where heads were cracked with hammers, bodies dumped? Was he among the good, the sane people? Or was he as bad as the gun-wielders?

It was a very tense night, the silence in the house charged like a ton of dynamite. He thought about leaving and sleeping elsewhere, but he was determined not to run away. It was his house. At two o’clock, he went to his daughter’s room. He sat in the darkness watching her sleep. She wheezed a little from a nostril clogged by an approaching cold. He listened as the air squeezed out, the sound magnified by the darkness. This was his last chance. From now on, visiting her was going to be a great effort. He felt like a creator whose creations had spun out of control.

After a very long time, he felt a change in the air, a scent, a stealthy breath. Victoria was standing in the doorway, her nightie clinging to her, her long body etched in shadow. She looked as seductive as he had ever seen her, and he could feel the beginning of an erection. It was only a matter of reaching out and she would be his again. He remembered their first meeting. A general’s wife? Maybe. He pushed all erotic ideas from his mind, and she looked like a painting on the wall: beautiful, passionless. The silence deepened as each failed to find words to say to break the deadlock, making the night oppressive in its grip on the house. Not a single night crawler, bird or animal cleaved the night with its cries, howls or calls. It seemed as if Bat and Victoria were holding their breath like divers attempting to break a record. She felt her love poisoned by rejection and experienced a massive sense of despair. She had all the violence of guns at her disposal but did not have the heart to touch him. One day I will return in triumph. It is just a matter of time, she said to herself. She stole away from the room. The spell broken, Bat gave a large sigh of relief and left the room, the whiff of baby powder in his nose.

DR. AHMED MOHAMMED MAHRANI ALI’S LEARJET circled Entebbe Airport. He hated night flights, partly because he could not enjoy the view outside, partly because he could hardly sleep on his plane. He hated this particular flight because it disrupted his schedule. He had not planned to return to Uganda for two months, but Marshal Amin had begged him to cancel his stay in Zaïre and come to his aid. Two big coup attempts in three weeks was enough trouble to unsettle even the toughest mind. At the beginning of their relationship he had made it clear to the Marshal that he did not baby-sit presidents. His role was to study the omens, offer sacrifice, but not to get bogged down in the politics of any country. But over time the nature of the relationship had changed and the two men had become friends. Gradually, the Marshal had asked for his advice here and there. And he had to admit that he had begun to like it. He found himself using information garnered from Emperor Bokassa, President Mobutu and other leaders to try and solve the Marshal’s problems. They would spend long hours discussing the personality problems of different dictators, from those who wore high-heeled shoes to appear taller, to those who pulled in their bellies at photo shoots to scale down the vastness of their stomachs, to those addicted to cocaine, heroin or pot. They would laugh at other dictators’ miseries, especially those deposed in palace coups in the middle of the night. Nixon’s plight was a favourite subject, especially because the Marshal had done his best to counsel him. They would laugh at the devilry of a system which made such a powerful man eat humble pie.

Dr. Ali did not want to claim credit for what happened in Uganda, but aside from foretelling a few events, including the imminence of the current revolt, he had been the person who had advised the Marshal to turn the Eunuchs into a specialized personal army, loyal only to him and nobody else. It gave Dr. Ali an adrenaline rush to know that he was among the most powerful men in the country. Why did that excite him? Because he had grown to love the country. It was so beautiful, yet so troubled. It was like a mad girl of uncommon beauty men felt tempted to rescue. He liked to think that he had played his part well. Take the spread of astrology. He had singlehandedly imported the practice. In his wake the Zanzibaris had taken over the business. It was amazing and amusing to see how quickly the revolution had taken root. The nicknames he had collected in the process amused him: God, Jesus, Satan, the Unholy Spirit, the Dream, the Giant, the Government Spokesman. He could understand why they called him the Dream. He had been the one who had advised the Marshal to hone his mystique by claiming that God talked to him in dreams. He had also advised him to proclaim unpopular laws, measures and announce embarrassing news through the Government Spokesman.