On the day Bat told her about the deal money, she trembled, and it made her look at her husband in another light for some time. It happened at a time when things were going badly for her Mafuta, the former planner of fantasy towns. She could not help comparing, feeling somehow let down. But she had also soon realized that her brother was operating on another level, in a different hemisphere, in a world of absolute power. She had almost told Mafuta. Now she stood on the brink again, wanting to share the burden with Babit. It hurt almost physically to maintain the load of trust in such a dire situation. It seemed as if Babit should know, but what if it backfired? She would lose her brother’s trust and incur Babit’s displeasure. She decided to grit her teeth a little bit longer, drawing strength from remembering her confusion when she heard that her brother was coming back after his stay at Cambridge. Why was he coming back at a time when many intellectuals were leaving? she asked herself at the time. She had been of the opinion that it was better for him to get a job in Britain. But within two weeks of his return he had landed a terrific job. She remembered how surprised and elated she became. It helped her to hold on to his trust.
That night, however, Sister got a severe attack of cramps; it was as if the baby were forcing its way out. Her world seemed to be collapsing on the ruins of her brother’s life. It was a harrowing night spent between states of mind, but the storm eventually passed.
In the morning Babit returned to the city. She hoped to find new developments. Unfortunately, there was no change in the situation. All leads were dead, oozing pessimism or euphemisms to cover inaction, failure. She fled to Entebbe, hoping to find solace in familiar surroundings.
The house felt strange. It lacked warmth, the casual reassurance of days gone by. The house staff seemed to be locked in a muddy inertia, as if awaiting their missing boss. They eyed her suspiciously, as though it was she who was keeping them in the dark. The lake was bereft of its consoling powers, the tireless waves a torment. She sat down on a rock, feet in the water, thoughts all over the sky. It was the wrong thing to do; she kept hallucinating about being swept away. She returned to the house. The cook had informed her that Victoria had called more than a dozen times in the past few days. She decided to pack quickly and flee. She paid the staff, just to make sure that they would stick around, and made ready to leave. Then the phone rang. It kicked off a gong in her chest. She snapped up the receiver.
“You are responsible for this. You are going to burn in hell for it,” Victoria shouted at the other end.
“For what?” Babit shouted back.
“You have destroyed this house. It is your kisirani; disaster follows you around like a bad smell.”
“I have the feeling that you engineered this just to punish him for throwing you out.”
“I would never do that. He is the father of my baby, remember? I love him. It is you who needs to be put down.”
“You will go first.”
“It is barren women like you who deserve that. What have you got to show for yourselves?”
Babit suddenly felt weary; she was consumed by pain. She was no good at this. She had never learned to fight mean and dirty, and she always took the bait. The fact that two of her aunts were barren made her feel tremors of uncertainty, fear.
“Have you suffered a heart attack? Why do you not speak?” Victoria taunted.
“You are a sick, demented woman. I have no time to waste on you.”
“Poor you. All my time is devoted to you. You are my project. I designed you, I implemented you. I am going to monitor and evaluate you to the end. If he stays away for a month, I am going to call for a month. If it is a year, I will be on your case for a year. If he never returns, it will be you and me for the rest of your life. If I were you, I would leave for good.”
“You will have to lie with your father before I go.”
“He is dead,” Victoria said in defeated tones.
Babit kept thinking that she was no good at this: “What do you expect from me? Flowers?”
“I will let you know in due time,” a sober Victoria said.
Babit slammed the phone down and saw the cook looking at her. She was old enough to be her mother, and it looked as if she wanted to overstep the boundaries and proffer advice. They locked looks for one long moment, then Babit walked away feeling confused.
The trouble with living in posh areas was the lack of public transport. The nearest bus stop was two kilometres away. Babit reluctantly called a taxi. How long would the money stretch? She had been the one who refused a joint account, for fear that he might be testing her to see if she was after his money. He had offered to open an account for her, but she had stopped him. He will be back, she said to herself as the taxi drove away. Deep blue skies, green leaves, red flowers gripped her imagination.
Babit’s arrival at her parents’ home was an ordeal. The beaming faces, the glinting eyes that came to welcome her were to be slashed to ribbons with the news. She had fortified herself with the words of the Bible, but in the end she gave in and cried. Her father looked on, mouth open, perplexed. It struck him that if Bat had married his daughter she would be a potential widow. The family sat down and went over the details. The uncertainty seemed to temper all emotions, cautioning against extreme reactions, outbursts. They remembered the first day he came to visit, exuding the kind of class every parent wished on his or her children. They remembered the recent feast, the gifts from Arabia. They remembered the time he appeared on national television, seeing a dignitary off at the airport. Babit’s father had talked it over with his friends. Television was only for those with status, power, and knowledge, something to say or show. He had felt a bit afraid, as if his future son-in-law had become too visible.
Two. In the Morgue
General Bazooka’s favourite method of break-ing the tension knotted inside him by paranoia, too much work, and the unending pressure of power and responsibility, was hosting orgies. This was the time when he indulged himself and did whatever came into his head. The house, a huge bungalow lighted like a burning ship, would be full of his friends, who would drink, smoke pot, gamble, fornicate and swear deep into the night. His favourite trick was to shoot beer bottles placed next to his friends, and, to perfect the skill, he practised assiduously every week. In the migratory season he often challenged them to shoot birds flying over his house for five hundred dollars per bird. He won most of the time because even if he was drunk, his aim was steady and his friends became reluctant to accept the challenges.
“Come on, Major,” he would say playfully, knowing that nobody could refuse, at least not on two separate occasions, “what will you tell your grandchildren? This is the only occasion we get to spend money meaningfully, I can assure you.”
“All right, General, we shoot two birds and only two and then resume our drinking,” the victim would say to all-round approval and raucous laughter.
As always, they would get carried away as soon as they handled the gun, miss a lot and eventually a heap of dollar bills would pile up at the General’s feet.
“I told you,” General Bazooka would say, “the best man wins, I can assure you.”
In the middle of the night, with every guest drunk or stoned, with nothing to aim at except the trees, the whole group would go outside and start shooting at the stars. There were often Russian roulette competitions, beer-drinking contests and duels fought out in bulletproof vests. The General loved holding beer in his cheeks and spraying his guests, especially his dates or pickups. At other times, they all pissed in the bathtub all night long, rolled the dice at the end of the party, and the loser would be made to strip and bathe in the piss. During those moments of wildness, with guns blazing, beer frothing, drugs smouldering, he would imagine somebody, a rival general, an officer from the Military Police, stepping in to interrupt the meeting. He always wondered how the encounter would end. Most probably in a fatal shoot-out.