Moses Isegawa: Snakepit

Sister now reminded Mafuta of those days to cheer him up after Bat had dropped them off.

“What do I need a princess for when I have you right here?” he said proudly, patting her back.

BAT SAW VICTORIA on and off; she somehow seemed to be there when he needed her. Her relationship with the General was dead, the only bond remaining being a lukewarm threat of violence if she strayed too far, for he had verbally released her. She started spending three days a week at Entebbe, reluctantly reporting to the office. She harboured dreams of spending the rest of her life with Bat. The fact that their relationship seemed to have developed by itself, without much effort on her part, made her feel that it was preordained. After all, she hadn’t written Bat any letters or sent him gifts or done any of the crazy things women do to trap men. She just appeared at the right time, and he seemed to have taken her the way one took a gift, without prying too much. She had accompanied him to a few official functions, and waited for rebukes from the General, which never came.

The meeting with the Kalandas had been less successful. They were too educated, speaking in what sounded like tongues to her. They discussed economics, high finance and banking and lost her. Mrs. Kalanda had not helped matters either. Never, for once, did she revert to women’s affairs. She kept up with the men till Victoria felt disgusted, stranded. She regretted the premature end to her education. She suddenly felt afraid that Bat might drop her because of her lack of education. Midway through the meeting, she tried to cut off the field by asking Mrs. Kalanda about politics. It was a no-go area for obvious reasons; nobody crossed it with strangers. Mrs. Kalanda rudely shut her up by saying that politics was the domain of spies and did not interest her at all. Victoria felt as if her cover had been blown. She apologized and asked for a glass of water to calm her nerves.

Later that evening Mrs. Kalanda told her husband that she did not trust Victoria. She even suggested that Bat should let somebody check out her background.

“The number of women in the State Research Bureau is staggering. Housewives, teachers, nurses, bankers, you name it,” she said, shaking her head sadly.

“Are you calling her a spy?” Kalanda asked amusedly.

“She is a woman without history. She is like a butterfly; nobody knows where she came from. She appeared out of the blue at a party. What would stop her from flying away without a trace?”

“Do you mean to say that she is a gold-digger?” Kalanda said, remembering his campus days. Even then Bat knew how to choose good-looking women; Victoria was no exception. The way she rolled those big eyes!

“Maybe worse,” Mrs. Kalanda replied worriedly.

“How does one tell Bat something like that?” Kalanda mused, his mind still preoccupied with Victoria’s body. He liked women with a wild streak; he had not had any in a very long time. He wished he could have one, to while away the boredom that comes with married life and guaranteed pussy. He hoped Bat was having a wonderful time.

“You have known him since God knows when. If he won’t listen to you, he will listen to nobody.”

“He is not defenceless. I am sure he is minding his step.”

“You are too complacent,” Mrs. Kalanda said loudly.

“The woman is in love as far as I can see,” Kalanda remarked languidly, as if thinking back to the heady days of fresh love; “you only had to see the way she kept sneaking looks at Bat.”

“Maybe she went to acting school,” Mrs. Kalanda said, raising her voice once again.

“Take it from me, my dear. Bat is all she is thinking about.”

Kalanda never got around to asking Bat directly to check out Victoria’s background; Bat knew very well the kind of people he worked and dealt with. To put his mind at ease, he asked whether Bat would tell Victoria about, say, a secret deal or fortune.

“Are you out of your mind?” Bat said, laughing. “What one hand does the other must never know.”

VICTORIA GOT VERY INVOLVED with Sister’s wedding. She attended many of the endless meetings which preceded weddings. For her it was never boring; she was connecting with the living, people preoccupied with everyday things, not abductions or other grisly affairs. It helped her combat her paranoia, since these people tried to be as oblivious to government goings-on as possible. She envied them their clean record and the fact that they had no nightmares rooted in harming other people. She prayed for pregnancy, for marriage, for life. If General Bazooka is happily married, and has been for years, and most people in the Bureau have families, why aren’t things working out for me? She prepared for the wedding as if she were the bride. She bought a very beautiful gown and looked more desirable than she had ever been. On the big day, the church reminded her of her childhood before the catastrophe. She could hardly take her eyes off the bride and her groom. She kept thinking, Next time I will be the centre of attention.

Months into her assigned official task, she reported to the General that she was not getting any viable information from Bat. He asked her to keep at it. She had now become used to Bat’s ways. After a very long day, he did not want to talk about work. When prodded, he would ask her to talk about something else, or throw a temper tantrum, leaving her on the defensive, begging to be forgiven. His finances were another restricted area. If she wanted money, he provided it without question. She had no way of making him talk if he was not communicative. She sometimes followed him to the lake, hoping that the waves and the wind would make him open up. He would sit on a rock, feet in the water, and let the waves do the talking. She was left with two choices: either to fabricate information or to let the General fuck himself.

GENERAL BAZOOKA GRUDGINGLY ADMITTED that Bat Katanga was the best employee he had ever had. It hurt to see how excellent his future prospects were. It was hard to tell how he had cleaned up the mess in the ministry. Whenever information was required, Bat or his team had it close at hand; whenever something needed to be done, they knew who would do it best and how long it would take him. His spies at the hydro-electric dam, which supplied the whole country with electricity, told him how well things were running. Much as he appreciated this level of efficiency, he felt it reflected badly on his position as overall boss of the ministry; it made him feel vulnerable, needful of this man and his talents as never before. How he would have loved it if a tribesman, a man he could trust 100 percent, had been the agent of this change! All this hurt very much because Bat was still uninitiated and had not pledged personal allegiance to me, his boss, his minister. He always talked about serving the government or the people, as if they, the leaders, his masters, weren’t people, as if Bat were an elected official, not somebody chosen by him. He was still the Cambridge graduate full of British airs, driving a British car, oozing sophistication. He had yet to inhale the stench of decay, which every true follower had to imbibe before being trusted, accepted. Apart from his academic aptitude, what had he ever done to deserve his fortune? News had already spread among ministers that he was an organizational wizard, and a few generals had talked about poaching him, moving him to their ministries for at least a year each. They even talked about tossing a coin or rolling the dice to find out who would get him first. The dice! He swore he would never allow that. He was sure some of those generals had consulted astrologers, possibly the Unholy Spirit himself, and had been promised success. But he would never let them take Bat away from him. If it came to that, they would all lose him. He knew that many generals were jealous because only recently Marshal Amin had singled out the Ministry of Power as deserving of special praise for showing improvement.