Moses Isegawa - Snakepit

AT A STATE BANQUET a few weeks later General Bazooka could not bear the sight of Colonel Ashes any longer. He went over and confronted him. The white man was holding his favourite cigar while talking to a friend. He laughed loudly, a hacking sound that spread across the room, tipping his head far back to allow the merriment to gush out of him. It was this cocky, self-assured laugh that incensed the General so much that he feared he might have a fit. Ashes looked so inaccessible, a cut above every guest present. He continued talking and laughing even when he saw the General striding towards him as if he intended to go right through him. They were in the gardens of the Nile Perch Hotel, the city at their feet. The sun was going down with a dazzling display of deep reds and oranges set against a pale high sky. Colonel Ashes always made sure that he observed sundown because it was so dramatic and so quick. It made his spirits rise and he toasted it with a stiff drink except when he was at receptions where alcohol was forbidden.

“You will not get away with this, I can assure you, Colonel,” the General spluttered, pointing his finger at his arch-enemy.

“I don’t understand. Do you want a drink, General?”

“The cowardly attack on my wife. .” he hissed, too furious to finish the sentence.

“It was a bloody shame what happened to your beloved wife,” Ashes said, emphasizing “beloved,” hardly able to hide his glee. The fact that fire was involved made it all the more delectable to him. How he would have liked to watch! “But you can take it from me that I had nothing to do with it. It must be one of those pathetic dissident groups you boys seem unable to take care of.”

General Bazooka reached for his gun but remembered that it was empty. Nobody had been allowed in armed, even if it was only Marshal Amin’s double in attendance. The Marshal’s favourite double had been shot in the stomach a few months before, and ever since, the rules had changed. “You will pay for this, I can assure you.”

“I don’t understand you people. Some small guy lays a finger on your tit and you start screaming as if he were cutting off your nuts. My wife’s house was attacked some time ago, but I never uttered a word. It is part of the game. You can’t play a man’s game with that boyish mentality of yours. You should have known that from the beginning, General. As one musician put it, ‘Too Much Love Can Kill You.’ ”

General Bazooka was shaking with exasperation. His forehead was covered in beads of perspiration. He wanted to strike the Englishman, but he knew that it would be of little use. Many dignitaries at the party knew about the bad blood flowing between the two of them, and it would serve no purpose to fuel their gossip machines. “I–I—I. .”

“If I were you, I would be in hospital holding my wife’s hand instead of hanging around here drowning in self-pity. Men who have tasted the power of life and death should never degrade themselves with such sentimental pooh. It all makes me wonder whether you have ever been shot, General. I have, on a number of occasions. It hurt like hell, but proximity to death breeds fortitude. I have pain in my legs, but I don’t complain. I love it. Why don’t you try it? You could begin by, say, plucking out your sinning eye, as your Bible tells you.” He grinned at the younger man, who looked totally confused.

The things the General wanted to do to this man were indescribable. He had, after all, auctioned his demise a long time ago. But wonder of wonders, the money remained unclaimed. It said a lot about his power and the state of the army. He spat a mouthful of soda in the grass near the Englishman’s shining shoes.

“It is people of very crude origins who do things like that,” Ashes said, inhaling a large volume of smoke from his cigar, as if to wipe away the insult. He looked disappointed. He saw how easy it was to destroy him. One word in the Marshal’s ear and he would be dead. He realized that these men received too much power too early in life, before they had learned iron discipline and proper detachment. It was the reason why the country had gone to the dogs; it was full of dogs. The very fact that he could come in and take over, and make millions of dollars, showed how rotten the structure was. He was sure of one thing though: he would not be around when the edifice collapsed on these people’s heads. He savoured his superior attitude with flair: this was the first time in his life that he worked with people he really despised. These men had given him little to respect them for. They were too predictable, the typical dumb soldiers who reached for the gun even if they only meant to take a piss.

He remembered the time that his wife’s house was razed to the ground. He had suspected General Fart, but he had kept his head and said nothing. On that day he just kissed his wife, and they spent the day on the island hunting parrots, roasting fish and later on making love. Now he regretted that it was not his men who had bombed Geneal Fart’s wife’s car. He would have savoured it more, and the woman would be dead as a doornail. For all the tough talk these men spouted, he knew they were afraid. Of the Marshal, of himself, of Dr. Ali, of the future. There was a rift of weakness in them. A general who allowed his wife to go out unprotected didn’t strike him as tough or sensible. In these times a general’s wife had to go out escorted by automatic rifles and Shark helicopters.

“One day you will regret this, I can assure you,” he heard the General, medals dancing, face swollen, eyes popping, say pathetically.

“We all have things to regret; it is the human condition, General. Maybe you more than I. I have one rule in life: I don’t look back. That is how I have survived to reach this age. Somebody blasts me, I blast back. If I don’t, I have myself to blame. If one day you become president, send a whole battalion of your sharp-shooters to arrest me. If you send boys, I will kill them all, and you wouldn’t want to begin your reign with burials, would you? Otherwise, I don’t give a bloody damn. If you do, then maybe you are in the wrong business, General.”

“One day you will see. .” General Bazooka uttered, feeling constipated by hate and ire.

“I live by the day, General. If I wake up dead one day, I won’t regret it. I do my job chasing and burning smugglers on the lake. If you boys did your work on land, and in your ministries, this would indeed be the pearl of Africa.”

Unable to stand it any longer, General Bazooka stormed off, trailed by his entourage. Few people paid attention; hatred among the top brass was as common as fleas on a dog.

FOUR STINGERS STOPPED at the front and the back of Victoria’s block of flats, and soldiers rushed in to secure the corridors. People peeped through their windows to see who had arrived. Many suspected that somebody was being arrested by the Eunuchs, the Bureau or the Public Safety Unit. They waited in vain to see some subdued figure emerge caged in a phalanx of soldiers.

It was around eight o’clock. Victoria had just finished feeding her daughter, who was in a good mood. She was walking about pulling things, laughing, jabbering. She brought her mother a pink doll. She pulled her mother’s hair, as if to make it as straight as that of the doll. Victoria’s heart sank when she heard the crunching of the boots. The noise seemed to confirm her worst fears that somebody wanted to kill her. It did not help that she had had a big row with Bat. He had ordered her to stop bothering his wife. He had confirmed that their relationship was over. He had shown her the wedding ring. He had told her that he knew who she really was. He had made it clear that her dreams of salvation did not include him; at least not in the role she wanted. He had remained impervious to her offers of everlasting love. She had cried, begged, and tried to use the child as leverage, but failed.