Moses Isegawa - Snakepit

In one explosion, the fifth and last one, General Bazooka’s wife lost an arm and was severely burned. She had gone to Jinja to visit the General’s mother and a few relatives, one of whom worked for the Bureau. The only mistake she made was to borrow the Bureau man’s car for the afternoon while hers got a tyre change. She always drove by herself, refusing to be herded like cattle by her husband’s bodyguards. The recent explosions had convinced her more than ever that anonymity was the best way to escape trouble. The car exploded when she started the engine. There were no fire extinguishers around, and the ferocity of the flames kept every rescuer at bay for some time. She was finally pulled out of the wreck, the fumes almost choking her to death. Bystanders gave her just a few days to live.

GENERAL BAZOOKA WAS CONFRONTED with a unique situation. In all the preceding years he had managed to escape untouched. The few people he lost he never mourned. In fact, he did not know what mourning was. Life seemed to come and drift away. A real man, a real soldier, never let anything get to him. He had been in all kinds of shoot-outs, ambushes, and had come out on top. He had killed robbers, soldiers in purges, civilians caught in crossfires. He had ordered bodies thrown away or drowned, and it had never bothered him. All this just cemented his belief in his own invincibility. Above all, his family was out of the game. Even Ashes seemed unlikely to dare touch his dear ones. It was a border nobody easily crossed.

Then came the news he had never even dreamed about. His rage failed to protect and numb him. He was looking into the abyss of helplessness for the first time in many years. He was pricked by thorns of self-pity; he felt the chill of loneliness, utter isolation. He simply didn’t know what to do. In the meantime, he received a message of condolence from the Marshal, who praised his wife as a woman the whole country should be proud of. It was as if the Marshal believed that she was dead. The language was so bombastic that somewhere in his heart, a small troublesome region now packed with intrigue and suspicion, he had the sneaky feeling that this might have been a plot executed with the Marshal’s blessing. But why? Had somebody accused me of treason? If so, why hadn’t they targeted me? Why have I heard nothing of it from my spies in the Marshal’s office and among the Eunuchs? he wondered.

In his heart of hearts he believed that Reptile was responsible, using the cover of the recent bombings. It felt like Ashes, that reptile. He would not come out directly and shoot her on the street, or abduct her and pound her to death like he did to Mrs. Bossman. No, he had to hide behind something in order to show his tact, and then sit back and howl with laughter because nobody could link him to the deed. Reptile definitely knew who had tried to kill his wife. This was no random bombing, especially because my wife had been driving somebody else’s car, the General thought bitterly.

General Bazooka had his wife transferred to Mulago Hospital for the best medical attention available and for proximity to her children. He planted guards on the hospital grounds and on each floor to protect her. In the hospital he was introduced to all kinds of deformity disease could inflict on the body. He saw cheeks blown out by boils, eyes runny with pus, lipless, legless, armless wrecks. He caught sight of patients with limbs caught in networks of pulleys and levers like flies in spider webs. He was especially troubled by children with single limbs playing in the hospital’s corridors, lost to the stink of formaldehyde, and the crush of visitors, nurses, doctors, cleaners. He saw victims of fires and wanted to look away. He realized that the hospital was the worst place he had ever visited: It brought him too close to his own mortality. It dispensed with all the myths of invincibility he cherished. He was no longer possessor and flaunter of life-and — death powers: the doctors and nurses were. He had to bow down to them, and listen when they talked.

On a number of occasions he had tried to commandeer the only lift in operation. It had not been worth the bother. It often transported corpses neatly covered in translucent sheets, or victims of car crashes bubbling in their blood, organs all over the place. He stuck to walking. He did it quickly, unseeingly, the burden of the effects of Marshal Amin’s policies — poverty, lack of medicine — ambushing him on every floor. The load became heaviest on the sixth floor, and outside his wife’s door. What if she was dead? Would his body be able to support the resultant rage? At such moments the country seemed to be full of enemies, conspirators, dissidents.

In the plain gaze of timid patients he seemed to detect fear and pity; the former because he could destroy them, the latter because he had come down from his high horse and, like them, he was dependent on doctors and nurses. It seemed as though they had seen the likes of him before and were ready to receive and outlast even more. Here at the hospital they used unsightly toilets, drank bad water, and could hardly afford to bribe doctors for treatment and drugs, and yet they looked at him as if he were already dead.

He suddenly remembered the artificial lake the Marshal had commissioned. An artificial lake to grow fish and dump garbage in! The bulldozers had huffed and puffed for two months, and now the project had crash-landed. No more money. Gaddafi had refused to finance it, even if the Marshal had promised to name it after him. Lake Gaddafi! All the money wasted! When he had asked for money to buy new dam equipment, he had been denied. All of a sudden, he felt disillusioned. He had been approached for help on two occasions by coup plotters. They were now dead. He felt he should have supported the second group. He suddenly wondered where he would be in ten, twenty years.

General Bazooka’s stomach turned when he saw his wife again. It occurred to him to shoot her and end her misery, but he didn’t want her to go. He wanted her around, in whatever shape. Marshal Amin had sent his team of doctors to look at her; there was little they could do for her. He went to her bed, sat down, held her hand and talked to her. He told her stories of his youth. He reminded her of the day they met. He recounted the events leading to the birth of their first child. He talked about the future of the children and his plan to build her a mansion bigger than his mother’s. He promised to buy her cattle, goats, sheep.

She could not talk, nor was he sure that she had heard him. She looked like a piece of cinder interrupted here and there by red patches and bandages. He brought the children to her and made them hold vigil, promising them to bring the criminals to justice. They had never seen their father looking so distressed. They had always seen him in his glory, in the glow of youth. Now he looked old, harassed, deranged. They knew that his future plans had been derailed, which meant uncertain days ahead. What if something happened before their mother got well? Would she survive a helicopter journey to the north? What if the helicopter was not available?

General Bazooka’s mother remained his only rock. She consoled him and urged him to shoulder his burden and move on. She wanted him to take his wife to Arua as soon as possible. He, however, preferred to wait a little longer and see what the specialists could do.

IT TOOK THE QUARTET sometime before they heard who was injured in the last blast. They celebrated but at the same time knew that they would have to be extremely careful. The stakes had risen to incredible levels, thanks to coincidence. General Bazooka had a reputation; he wasn’t going to take this lying down. They suspended operations while trying to find out the counter-measures the General or the security agencies were going to take. During that time Tayari suffered bouts of hellish worry: What if Victoria sold him to the General? Wouldn’t the General arrest Bat in order to make him tell where he was?