Moses Isegawa - Snakepit

Nobody expected much from police nowadays. Corruption and impotence were rampant. Arrestees could be freed through army intervention. The justice system was groaning under gross interference from government. Judges had been killed, intimidated, pushed out of the system or the country, and others were afraid to pass sentence against elements of the security organizations. The missing people’s desk had lists choked with names, all that was left of people nobody expected to see again. The officer in charge wrote down Bat’s name and promised action.

Babit travelled to Kampala to join the Kalandas with little idea of what was happening. She needed the comfort of movement to reassure her that something was being done. In the city, she changed vehicles. She was dropped near her destination, among houses surrounded by wire fences and swallowed by thick walls of cypress. She walked right past the house, realized her mistake, doubled back, collected her thoughts, and knocked on the door.

Mrs. Kalanda did her best to be positive, hiding her confusion with heartfelt optimism. Babit had already started blaming herself for everything, echoing Victoria’s accusations. She seemed to think that she had brought bad luck with her. Otherwise, how could he disappear so quickly after their union? Mrs. Kalanda told her to pull herself together, to get ready to fight and not fall apart so early in the game. This was a national catastrophe striking families everywhere, she said. But Babit wouldn’t see it as anything but a curse: first a glimpse of heaven in the life she wanted; then this hell. Mrs. Kalanda let Babit exhaust herself. It would take much longer for sense to show itself in the young woman’s troubled mind.

Mr. Kalanda found the two women struggling with what to do about the situation. He hardly knew what to say. They talked about informing Sister, then Bat’s parents. They started listing everybody they knew who might know somebody in the security agencies. It had become clear that running round the city in a daze would not do. It was better to set the bloodhounds on the scent. Insiders were more likely to solve the problem. Few names, however, fell into the hat. And when contacted they cautioned against too much optimism; a familiar refrain to an old song.

Efforts to contact Sister failed. She had no phone. Babit volunteered to inform her in person. She was relieved to be on the road again, feeling the world whirl about her. Kabasanda was a small town, reminiscent of an outpost town, situated in a wedge of land between two big tarmac roads. It was a link in a chain of towns which fed the city with supplies.

As soon as she saw Babit, Sister knew that something was wrong. To make matters worse, Mafuta was away on business. She questioned Babit in detail, going over everything. The car had not been found, a worrying sign. Dealing with disappearances was like working in the dark. Sometimes details meant something, sometimes nothing. Why hadn’t anybody at the office called, volunteered anonymous information?

As the gravity of the situation sank in deeper, Sister feared for her brother’s life. It felt strange that she was privy to secrets Babit didn’t know. She weighed what to reveal and what to keep to herself. The fact that she and her brother didn’t see each other much made the gravity of the trust more poignant. She knew that she held the keys, some of the keys, to his freedom. The weight of this knowledge had a searing effect on her nerves.

On the day Bat told her about the deal money, she trembled, and it made her look at her husband in another light for some time. It happened at a time when things were going badly for her Mafuta, the former planner of fantasy towns. She could not help comparing, feeling somehow let down. But she had also soon realized that her brother was operating on another level, in a different hemisphere, in a world of absolute power. She had almost told Mafuta. Now she stood on the brink again, wanting to share the burden with Babit. It hurt almost physically to maintain the load of trust in such a dire situation. It seemed as if Babit should know, but what if it backfired? She would lose her brother’s trust and incur Babit’s displeasure. She decided to grit her teeth a little bit longer, drawing strength from remembering her confusion when she heard that her brother was coming back after his stay at Cambridge. Why was he coming back at a time when many intellectuals were leaving? she asked herself at the time. She had been of the opinion that it was better for him to get a job in Britain. But within two weeks of his return he had landed a terrific job. She remembered how surprised and elated she became. It helped her to hold on to his trust.

That night, however, Sister got a severe attack of cramps; it was as if the baby were forcing its way out. Her world seemed to be collapsing on the ruins of her brother’s life. It was a harrowing night spent between states of mind, but the storm eventually passed.

In the morning Babit returned to the city. She hoped to find new developments. Unfortunately, there was no change in the situation. All leads were dead, oozing pessimism or euphemisms to cover inaction, failure. She fled to Entebbe, hoping to find solace in familiar surroundings.

The house felt strange. It lacked warmth, the casual reassurance of days gone by. The house staff seemed to be locked in a muddy inertia, as if awaiting their missing boss. They eyed her suspiciously, as though it was she who was keeping them in the dark. The lake was bereft of its consoling powers, the tireless waves a torment. She sat down on a rock, feet in the water, thoughts all over the sky. It was the wrong thing to do; she kept hallucinating about being swept away. She returned to the house. The cook had informed her that Victoria had called more than a dozen times in the past few days. She decided to pack quickly and flee. She paid the staff, just to make sure that they would stick around, and made ready to leave. Then the phone rang. It kicked off a gong in her chest. She snapped up the receiver.

“You are responsible for this. You are going to burn in hell for it,” Victoria shouted at the other end.

“For what?” Babit shouted back.

“You have destroyed this house. It is your kisirani; disaster follows you around like a bad smell.”

“I have the feeling that you engineered this just to punish him for throwing you out.”

“I would never do that. He is the father of my baby, remember? I love him. It is you who needs to be put down.”

“You will go first.”

“It is barren women like you who deserve that. What have you got to show for yourselves?”

Babit suddenly felt weary; she was consumed by pain. She was no good at this. She had never learned to fight mean and dirty, and she always took the bait. The fact that two of her aunts were barren made her feel tremors of uncertainty, fear.

“Have you suffered a heart attack? Why do you not speak?” Victoria taunted.

“You are a sick, demented woman. I have no time to waste on you.”

“Poor you. All my time is devoted to you. You are my project. I designed you, I implemented you. I am going to monitor and evaluate you to the end. If he stays away for a month, I am going to call for a month. If it is a year, I will be on your case for a year. If he never returns, it will be you and me for the rest of your life. If I were you, I would leave for good.”

“You will have to lie with your father before I go.”

“He is dead,” Victoria said in defeated tones.

Babit kept thinking that she was no good at this: “What do you expect from me? Flowers?”

“I will let you know in due time,” a sober Victoria said.

Babit slammed the phone down and saw the cook looking at her. She was old enough to be her mother, and it looked as if she wanted to overstep the boundaries and proffer advice. They locked looks for one long moment, then Babit walked away feeling confused.