At the beginning of my holidays, I always hoped to find some new document, some loose rumor or story adding to the original. My biggest find so far had been a chit written by Aunt Lwandeka in fat, girlish letters on a page torn from an exercise book belonging to one of her three children. I found it tucked away in a small Good News Bible at the bottom of her suitcase. It read:
7/3/73 allest. ballaks. intallogeson. snek. tall man. knife. bligadir. fleedom.
The first time I saw the chit, I laughed. I had never seen such a childish interpretation of the English language by an adult. This kind of writing could crack up a classroom for days. The names Cane would give this unfortunate individual! But this was my maternal aunt. This was the peasant girl who had rebelled against her strict Catholic parents and refused to finish school. How I wished she had kept a diary, with all the juicy details! But like many peasant girls, she never kept details of her life on paper. She had written this chit to aid her memory, and I knew that the decision had cost her a lot of thought. Her childish English suddenly made me feel protective of her. I felt closer to her because I knew her secret, her weakness. I also felt that I had the power to redeem her.
I added the new facts to the sketch of events I already had. Now I knew that she was arrested on the seventh of March, 1973, and was taken to the barracks, where she was interrogated by a tall man with a knife. She referred the tall man to a certain brigadier, who influenced the subsequent course of events. The case was taken to court, and she was finally freed. Who was Snek? Was “snek” an anagram? If so, was he a foreigner or some home-grown bruiser? Was Snek the tall man or the brigadier? Maybe Snek was none of the above and she was the woman who had written Aunt the trouble-causing letter. I was tempted on very many occasions to casually mention the name Snek and watch Aunt’s reaction, but I valiantly restrained myself. I did not want to get into her bad books.
When it finally dawned on me that “snek” was not a person but a reptile, I felt angry that Aunt had not told me what had happened to her. I knew that she lived in mortal terror of snakes, but I wanted to know why. Had the thug made her eat raw snake meat? Or fuck a snake? What was this snake thing about? I felt that she had locked me out of a vital secret.
Aunt Lwandeka’s involvement with politics started after her release. Something had changed in her during those weeks of proximity with death. One could even say that the snake poison had gone to her head. Her handwriting might have remained girlish, but girlhood had ended for her. Her involvement, however, remained low-key and only became open in the mid-seventies, when guerrilla activities across the border in Tanzania increased. She gradually told me about it. She was a member of the National Reform Movement, or NRM, as everyone called it. The NRM was a small organization within the blanket guerrilla movement in Tanzania fighting to oust Amin. It was charged with the task of executing small anti-government operations like blowing up power lines, wrecking bridges, attacking military roadblocks and disorganizing government figures.
From the little she told me, I learned that Aunt’s role was to supply information about local troop movements, roadblocks and the whereabouts of key local government officials. She was also part of the group that housed NRM guerrillas in secret locations and supplied them with travel documents, graduated-tax tickets, identity cards and the like. All this was playing with fire, of course. If Amin’s men arrested her again, they would not let her go: they would torture her, rape her, possibly kill her, or make her beg them to end her suffering. I was sure they would make last time seem like a schoolyard prank. It was no longer a secret that the State Research Bureau, military intelligence and other security organs were scared of whatever was brewing across the border. Aunt knew what Amin’s men could do, but she thumbed her nose at them. She had already crossed and burned the last bridge: fear of death. All this did not make me feel very safe. At the seminary, there was this thing about all authority coming from God; I did not believe it, and yet I felt there was some truth in it. The jigsaw puzzle I was putting together at times seemed to form some devilish configurations. I did not like it.
The first time Aunt got into serious trouble, the time when Padlock left her domain for four full days and I remained in charge of the shitters with the bobbin already in my possession, it was a letter from a German lady that triggered the whole thing. Dr. Wagner had come to Uganda with the intention of setting up her own practice. She first worked for a Catholic hospital in order to acclimatize, and that was when Aunt ran into her. Aunt worked as her housekeeper. Later, after being impressed with her diligence, Dr. Wagner made plans for her to go back to school in order to improve her English as a precursor to further schooling. Aunt was very enthusiastic about the plan, and being in the proximity of a learned person motivated her more. She admired Dr. Wagner and found her easy to live with because the rules were clear-cut and everything happened at a fixed time, in a fixed order. The 1971 coup did not bother Dr. Wagner. She knew that whichever regime came to power, doctors would be needed. The Indian exodus shook her but did not unhinge her: she was a professional, after all. If anything, the exodus hardened her resolve. The scope of her duties could only widen, as there were all those patients formerly treated by Indian doctors to care for. However, the Economic War — the effort to indigenize the economy — bred instability, which worried her. Since the mission hospital she worked for had been standing from the beginning of the century, she did not fear for her job, though she now doubted the feasibility of striking out on her own. Then the hammer fell on Britons, Americans and Germans. She was allowed to stay, but things went from bad to worse. Two hospital vans were stolen. Staff members disappeared and wouldn’t say where they had been when they returned. Dr. Wagner’s view was that somebody in government was harassing the hospital because the archbishop was very critical of the Amin regime. The hospital took measures and employed security guards, and staff were advised not to go out at night or open doors for anybody after curfew time. Dr. Wagner believed she still had a chance. She was not yet ready to return to Germany; her mother had died of cancer, and she was too shaken up to go back just yet. Then she got notice that her work permit had to be renewed on a monthly basis. She thought of going to neighboring Kenya, but she had not liked the racial climate there. When, out of the blue, she was given twenty-four hours to leave the country, she flew home in a huff.
The letter she wrote to her former housekeeper had to be rewritten several times, each time diluting its venom, but she refused to erase certain elements; for example:
The soldiers at the airport stole my money. They also wanted to steal my watch, but I would not surrender it. I advised them to ask General Amin for a salary raise if they believed they deserved more money for terrorizing people. One tried to butt me with his rifle, but his colleague held the gun from behind. This makes me wonder how you are going to live in that kind of environment. You are on your own now. Work hard on your education, and make sure that you get some certificates. Send me information about your activities and about the country; and if it is important, I will circulate it among friends and among the country’s well-wishers. Take care of yourself, and remember: Ugandan soldiers are very dangerous.…