Balim touched the cool flank of the Mercedes for support. I’m a businessman, I shouldn’t be involved in these things, nor should Bathar. Let him go to London. There, the middle class has won.
The radio continued to snarl, and Magon continued to translate: “They have attacked the Angel and sunk her.”
The distant sounds of firing still continued. Obuong, sounding angry, said, “She isn’t sunk, we can see her burning.”
“She’s as good as sunk,” Magon said. “There were no survivors.” He shrugged with the microphone. “Let them play.”
Obuong, grim-faced, caught Balim looking at him and managed a small smile. “I hate disorder,” he said. “Excessive force. I am no friend of chaos.”
“But chaos has many friends in Africa, still,” Balim said, looking out at the burning ship.
68
Pistol in his right hand, Lew slipped into the dim church, which was lit only by three candles on the altar at the far end. Three old women dressed in white knelt in front pews, praying. A young man in a black cassock and large round eyeglasses crossed the altar and disappeared through a low door at the side. The silence of the church was accented by the sibilant whispers of the praying women.
Driving through Bugembe in the old pickup truck, just a few miles before Jinja, seeing the town’s name on the road sign, Lew had remembered Bishop Michael Kibudu from the dreadful holding cell in the State Research Bureau. Evangelical Baptist Mission; he’d spoken with pride of his church in Bugembe. But that had been only a passing memory, unimportant until Lew had driven into Jinja and had seen the police check at the bridge.
He must cross the Nile to get to Entebbe. If one bridge at Jinja was blocked, the other would also be. The next nearest bridge was forty miles north at Mbulamuti, and why wouldn’t that also be blocked? A white face blackened with grease would not get him through a police check; that was why he had turned around and come back to Bugembe. There was nowhere else to go for help.
He felt terribly exposed as he walked down the center aisle to the altar, right hand holding the pistol under his shirt, but none of the women looked up from their exhortations. Stepping over the rail, Lew went through the low door into a small sacristy, whose wooden walls were covered with hung vestments. The young clergyman was at a rolltop desk in the corner, copying numbers from a hymnal by the light of a kerosene lamp. He lifted his head to stare at Lew, his eyes startled behind the large glasses. “It’s all right,” Lew told him, fast and low, as he closed the door. “I’m a friend of Bishop Kibudu.”
The clergyman got to his feet. His manner, though frightened, was alert and suspicious. “You know the bishop? May I ask from where?”
“The State Research Bureau. We were in a cell there together.”
Astonishment replaced apprehension. “You’re the white man? The bishop was certain you had died. We remember you in our prayers.”
“Not a bad idea,” Lew said.
“The bishop will be delighted,” the clergyman said, clasping his hands together in front of himself like a much older man.
It was Lew’s turn to be astonished. “He’s alive?” He brought his hand out empty from under his shirt.
“Oh, yes, our bishop has come back to us. Are the police after you?”
Lew grinned. “The police, the Army; you name it.”
“Wait here,” the clergyman said, and went out through a door in the opposite wall.
It was only after the clergyman had gone that it occurred to Lew that he’d taken the man on faith, with no particular reason to do so. Why would Kibudu be alive? Why wouldn’t this curate, or whatever he was, to save his own skin, be calling the police right now? I should have gone with him, Lew thought, his hand reaching again for the comfort of the pistol under his shirt.
But it actually was Bishop Kibudu who next came in through that door, beaming from ear to ear, rolling forward, arms outstretched for a bear hug, crying, “God is wonderful, God is good! You have lifted my spirits!”
“And you mine,” Lew said, grinning back, permitting himself to be crushed in the bishop’s surprisingly strong embrace. Then they stood at arm’s length to study each other, and Lew was happy to see that only a few small scars around the bishop’s eyes remained as visible reminders of his time at the State Research Bureau. Cleaned up, horn-rim glasses perched on his broad nose, he looked more a scholar than a bishop, and not at all like a broken victim in a foul dungeon.
He himself, he knew, was not that presentable. The bishop laughed at his appearance, saying, “That’s not much of a disguise, that dirt on your face.”
“I’ve been driving; I didn’t want anyone to notice a white face going by. Bishop, how did you get out of there?”
“An attorney in Jinja named Byagwa,” the bishop said. “Sometimes he can help in religious cases. Fortunately, mine was one of the problems in which his persistence finally bore fruit. But what of you?”
The young clergyman had also come in and shut the door, and now stood smiling to one side, hands clasped in front of himself. Lew said, “A friend of mine in Kenya managed to get through to somebody in the government here. They convinced the Research Bureau it was all a mistake.”
“You were very fortunate indeed,” the bishop said blandly. “Oh, by the way,” he said, gesturing at the young priest, “this is my assistant, Father Njuguna.”
Lew and Father Njuguna smiled and nodded at one another. Bishop Kibudu watched Lew’s face, his manner still smiling and friendly. “Your popping up again,” he said, “suggests that you weren’t entirely candid with me last time.”
“I don’t think I will be this time either,” Lew admitted, and shrugged. “I’m involved in a little something. Nothing you could endorse, but you wouldn’t oppose it, either. We’re giving Idi Amin one in the eye, in a small way. Not an important way, but every little bit helps.”
“It has been said,” the bishop commented, “that you can tell a man by the quality of his enemies. That’s all I need to know about you.”
“Thank you.”
“You need help. I hope it’s something within my grasp to do.”
“I’m trying to get out of the country,” Lew said, and grinned again, adding, “For obvious reasons.”
The bishop nodded.
“I have a way out,” Lew went on, “if I can get to Entebbe. But the Nile bridge is blocked. If I can get across it, I’ll be all right.”
“Is that all?” the bishop asked. “You simply want to get across the Nile?”
“Yes, please.”
“Nothing could be simpler,” the bishop said. “Come along.”
In the church basement, by the light of another kerosene lantern, the bishop showed Lew his coffin. “You will be very comfortable in it, I assure you,” he said.
“I don’t particularly want to be comfortable in it,” Lew told him.
Earnest young Father Njuguna said, in complete seriousness, “You’ll be the first to use it.”
Lew laughed. “That’s good to know. Just so I’m not the last.”
Bishop Kibudu said, “We shall paint your face and hands with colors that would make a grown man faint, suggestive of various terrible diseases. We shall put a little piece of very strong cheese in the coffin with you. I myself will drive our hearse, and Father Njuguna will drive your own vehicle. In no time at all, you will be on the other side of the Nile.” Grinning like Mr. Pickwick, he made a clerical joke: “That’s not the Jordan, mind you. The Nile.”
Lew said, “Bishop, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”