In due course, Victoria got word that Bat was in love with another woman. She asked two colleagues in the Bureau to get her a picture of this person. A search of Babit’s parents’ house was made: sofas were cut open, carpets ripped from floors, bedding shredded, coffee sacks emptied. Babit’s modest photo collection was found and taken. The damage would have been worse, but Victoria had instructed the men not to take anything else or to harm anyone. To make sure that they followed her orders, she had paid them up front. It had cost her, but she had felt that it was the right thing to do for someone seeking salvation, for someone pursuing a dream.
The pictures, when they arrived, disappointed. Babit did not measure up to her, looks-wise. She was younger but lacked the height, the poise. It was a mystery to her how a dynamic, rich man like Bat could feel attracted to that stolid person in the pictures. How can this person take my man away from me? she cried aloud. How can she dare to? A plethora of nasty ideas flooded her mind: she wanted to hurt Bat; she wanted to hurt the woman; she wanted to hurt herself. She became afraid that her recovery had not been all that thorough. The old ways beckoned, tempting her with their effectiveness.
She went to the nursery and picked up the child; it was sleeping, oblivious to the storm. She felt a maternal love wash over her. But the child’s helplessness only made her fiercer. She had sworn never to fall back into the snakepit after the birth of her child, but now she was not so sure. She felt disappointed with herself, and with the world. She seemed to be pushed back into the same life she wanted to flee. Bat had said that he was not in love. Does that deny me the right to be deeply in love with him? Had I not loved the General despite his being married and continuing to pick up other girls? Maybe I had only been in love with the General’s power of life and death. Bat does not have that power and so I am the one with the finger on the trigger. I can very easily destroy him, and this woman and both their families.
When Bat returned home at eleven o’clock that evening, her anger exploded. “Where have you been?” she asked even before greeting him. Her body was rigid, her hands bunched into fists held at her sides.
“Work,” he said looking at her, surprised that she had the nerve to shout like that.
“Where did you go after work?”
“None of your business. If I need somebody to track me, I will move in with the Bureau and the Public Safety Unit.” He wondered why he was bothering to explain himself. Was this not his house?
Maybe you did move in with those organizations, Victoria said under her breath before saying, “It is my business. I am your wife. I have your baby. I am in love with you.”
“I don’t remember ever getting married. If I did, maybe I should seek a divorce. Anyway, in this country divorce is unnecessary. One can simply ask the wife to leave. I love my daughter, but I am not about to take orders from her mother.”
“You are not going to get away with this,” she said heatedly. It looked as if she was about to spring and choke him.
“With what?” he said disdainfully.
“Whoring.”
“I don’t remember visiting a single whore in my whole life,” he said as if to himself.
It occurred to him to lead a trade delegation to Saudi Arabia and get away from the stress. General Bazooka was bogged down with suppressing a revolt in the army. The Lugbaras, Amin’s former favourites, had rebelled since being dropped in favour of the Nubians and Kakwas. They had made a coup attempt, storming the presidential palace with guns and bombs. Now the Hammer, as they called the General, was taking them apart, with the help of the Eunuchs. Bat decided to go to Saudi Arabia.
“Answer me. I am talking to you,” Victoria said, rising from the sofa. In the blink of an eye, she was standing over him, her index finger aimed at his eyeball. It amused him and he almost laughed. The last woman to beat him was his biology teacher during his secondary-school days. He slapped the finger away and ordered her to sit down. She refused. He remembered that he knew nothing about her and had resisted the urge to run a check on her. He had assumed that his status as a high-ranking civil service official would protect him from government conspiracies. After all, was he not the saviour of the Ministry of Power and Communications? Where would General Bazooka be without him? he thought to himself, as if to vindicate his course of action, his complacency. He stood up, pushed her away, and ordered her never to raise her voice at him again.
Blind with rage, she slapped him on the temple. It did not hurt very much, his eyes did not water, and neither did his head rock or his knees buckle. But Bat saw it as a revelation of Victoria’s true colours. A wave of fear coursed through his chest. What did I get myself into? he thought, remembering the toast he made to risk, to adventure, the evening they met. He pushed her away and ordered her to leave his house.
Victoria wondered if she had gone too far. But what was going too far when the General had put him at her disposal? Surely a slap was in order. It was better than a hammer, a panga slash, a gun blast. Why did he not make a fight of it and slap back? Maybe we would have rolled on the floor and finally ended up in each other’s arms. What Victoria forgot was that Bat was not seeing her as a Bureau agent, bearer of life-and-death powers, but as a helpless woman living in his house, under his generosity.
“I am not going anywhere,” she said defiantly, fists balled, breathing hard from internal exertion.
“If you can do what you have just done, it means you are capable of a lot more things I don’t know about. These are troubled times, Vicki. Anyone is capable of anything. To avoid trouble in the future, I want us to part when we can still bear to look at each other.”
“You are my first love. You performed a miracle and I bore a child. You can’t escape your destiny, the role God cut out for you.”
At the mention of God, Bat became suspicious. Which God did she mean: the Christian one or Dr. Ali? Had she consulted the famous astrologer or one of his assistants? Where had she gotten the money? When? He dismissed the idea. She probably meant the Christian God.
“I want you to leave in the morning. You deserve a better life.”
Victoria burst into tears. She asked for forgiveness. When she tried to use the child as a shield and a weapon, Bat had a sudden attack of doubt. He could take the child away from Victoria and give it to his mother to raise, assisted by hired help or another relative. But it would scar her; she was still too young. It was best to let her stay with Victoria, but what kind of world was he sending his daughter into? What kind of men and women were going to influence her? He experienced a sense of failure. Had he not failed by not pressing for an abortion? Abortion in a land where heads were cracked with hammers, bodies dumped? Was he among the good, the sane people? Or was he as bad as the gun-wielders?
It was a very tense night, the silence in the house charged like a ton of dynamite. He thought about leaving and sleeping elsewhere, but he was determined not to run away. It was his house. At two o’clock, he went to his daughter’s room. He sat in the darkness watching her sleep. She wheezed a little from a nostril clogged by an approaching cold. He listened as the air squeezed out, the sound magnified by the darkness. This was his last chance. From now on, visiting her was going to be a great effort. He felt like a creator whose creations had spun out of control.
After a very long time, he felt a change in the air, a scent, a stealthy breath. Victoria was standing in the doorway, her nightie clinging to her, her long body etched in shadow. She looked as seductive as he had ever seen her, and he could feel the beginning of an erection. It was only a matter of reaching out and she would be his again. He remembered their first meeting. A general’s wife? Maybe. He pushed all erotic ideas from his mind, and she looked like a painting on the walclass="underline" beautiful, passionless. The silence deepened as each failed to find words to say to break the deadlock, making the night oppressive in its grip on the house. Not a single night crawler, bird or animal cleaved the night with its cries, howls or calls. It seemed as if Bat and Victoria were holding their breath like divers attempting to break a record. She felt her love poisoned by rejection and experienced a massive sense of despair. She had all the violence of guns at her disposal but did not have the heart to touch him. One day I will return in triumph. It is just a matter of time, she said to herself. She stole away from the room. The spell broken, Bat gave a large sigh of relief and left the room, the whiff of baby powder in his nose.