At last, a drink having been ordered, Chase permitted Sir Denis to reclaim his hand, saying, “Your friend Carlo has been telling me his troubles, and I’ve been telling him mine.”
Meaning that Carlo had not managed to whittle down the new demand; thus Carlo’s frantic expression. Sir Denis amiably said, “I did hear something about an attempt to reopen the negotiation.”
“Oh, really?” Chase frowned in apparent puzzlement. “On what basis?”
“Perhaps I was mistaken,” Sir Denis said. “Something about a larger payment in advance.”
“Oh, the restructuring!” Chase laughed, shaking his head. “That’s not a—Here’s your drink.”
“Thank you.”
The foul-smelling boy went away. Sir Denis sipped gin with a hint of tonic and too much lemon. Chase said, “There’s no renegotiation, Sir Denis. May I call you Sir Denis?”
“Of course.” And why not? Sir Denis would know he was being spoken to with formal correctness, and the Canadian would believe they were on an informal footing; another diplomatic triumph.
“A restructuring of the payment schedule, Sir Denis,” said Chase, relishing his new formal informality, “is hardly a renegotiation. But that’s not your concern. Do come along and meet the president.”
A coldness ran up Sir Denis’s spine, to become a thrill of dread raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He restrained a shiver, saying, “I’d be delighted.”
“We’ll talk later,” Carlo said to Sir Denis, his expression that of a man too polite to mention that he was drowning.
Holding Sir Denis gently but persistently by the elbow—could this man never keep his hands to himself?—Baron Chase steered him past conversations in several languages and through the connecting door to the next room on the right, where a dozen or so people stood in the awkward poses of bad statuary, facing the family group which dominated the center of the room.
The sudden need to laugh only intensified Sir Denis’s dread. Idi Amin wore a camouflage uniform, several sizes too small, the meandering swaths of greens and browns stretched tight across his huge torso and thick thighs, so that at first glance he looked like an aerial photograph of rolling countryside, emphasized by the bulging jacket pockets just below the putative waist. The string of medals on his chest—so many they overlapped, like magazines on a coffee table—might be the region’s principal town. But what to make of that brooding mammoth black olive of a head, with its wide dissatisfied mouth and heavy disbelieving eyes?
To Amin’s right stood a young and beautiful light-complected black woman, very tall and slender, in some sort of native costume involving many yards of wrapped colorful cloth. Her hair, in the local style of the very rich, had been braided and twisted into arches and figure eights rising a foot from her head like a modern sculpture in wrought iron. The young woman was very happy, smiling as though she believed this to be her own birthday party.
Flanking the adults were two children, each a kind of echo. The little girl beside the young woman—probably six or seven years of age—had a simpler and more traditional hairdo but wore a similar costume. The boy of about ten, pressing shyly against Amin’s left leg, wore an exact replica of his father’s camouflage uniform. Both children were beautiful, with large brown eyes and solemn expressions.
The guiding hand on his elbow forgotten, Sir Denis allowed Chase to pilot him across the room. All else disappeared, and Sir Denis watched those black eyes watch him approach.
“President Amin Dada,” Baron Chase said, releasing the elbow at last, “may I present Sir Denis Lambsmith?”
A broad smile bisected Amin’s face. Sir Denis, having expected any smile from this creature to be ferocious, was astonished at how boyish Idi Amin could look, despite his size, his ugliness, his reputation. Shaking Sir Denis’s hand in his own big but gentle paw, Amin said, “Foreign exchange,” and laughed.
“Delighted to meet you, Your Excellency,” Sir Denis said.
“Foreign exchange,” Idi Amin said again, as though the phrase were Sir Denis’s name, or a password, or a joke known only to them. Then he laughed some more, and patted Sir Denis’s shoulder, and turned away to signal to one of the nonentities at the side.
The man who hustled forward was neat but shabby, intelligent looking but worried, tall but bent with anxiety, unquestionably Negroid but with an aquiline nose and pointed chin. Circling behind Amin and the woman and the two children, this fellow took up a position beyond the little boy—who was gazing with perfect solemn curiosity up at Sir Denis—and apparently awaited instructions.
Which came rapidly, in a quick rattle of words from Amin. The language was breathy and sharp-toned, with clicks and glottal stops and frequent harsh joinings. Swahili. The new man listened, nodding, and when Amin had stopped he turned to Sir Denis and said, “The President for Life says he is most happy to have you here in our beautiful country. He hopes you will take the opportunity while you are here to travel about and see some of our most famous scenery. And he is glad that you will take the interest in us to help us with our problem with foreign exchange.”
Sir Denis listened to all this in some astonishment, then said directly to Amin, “Your Excellency, it was my understanding that you speak English.”
The translator was about to render this into Swahili, but Amin answered it first, in that language. The translator told Sir Denis, “The President for Life says he has some very poor English, good only for the barracks ground. With a person as important as yourself, the President for Life considers it necessary that the language is, umm—”
“Pre-zeis,” said Idi Amin.
The translator blinked and swallowed, as though he’d been threatened. “That the language is precise,” he said.
“But surely,” Sir Denis said, again speaking directly to Amin, “this is a social situation. None of us will try for hard bargaining here, I hope.”
Amin smiled again, this time the look having something of that ferocity Sir Denis had been anticipating. Another rattle of Swahili, like hail on a tin roof, was translated: “All the bargaining is over. The President for Life is happy that the Brazilians and the International Coffee Board have found Ugandan coffee tasteful.” More Swahili, then: “And the price of our tasteful coffee acceptable.”
“The coffee and the price are both excellent,” said Sir Denis, essaying a small smile in the direction of Amin.
More Swahili: “The President for Life is happy that the Brazilians and your own, um, leaders are—”
“Print-zi-pals,” said Idi Amin.
“Your own principals,” the translator hurriedly said, “are agreeable to the very small and modest advance payment of one third.”
“I had not believed,” Sir Denis said carefully, “that the discussion on that point was finished.”
“All finished!” Amin said, laughing out loud, thumping his palm in satisfaction against his stomach, making a single muffled drumbeat. Other people in the room, who could not have heard the conversation, nor have understood it if they’d heard it, found a reason to laugh. Amin reverted to Swahili, and the translator delivered the translation: “We are here now, in great friendship and joy, to sign many papers.”
One of the more useful tools of diplomacy was the tactful display of annoyance. Speaking now to the translator, Sir Denis said, “Would you tell the President for Life how happy I am that this problem has been resolved? I wasn’t before this aware of its resolution.”
Idi Amin laughed again and spoke in Swahili. The translator looked very unhappy and remained silent. Idi Amin lowered an eye to glance at him. The translator said to Sir Denis, “The President for Life says, his cock is bigger than yours.”