“I am a prince,” he always said when he became drunk. “I can do whatever I want, I can assure you. If I want somebody’s eye, I pluck it. If I want somebody’s arm, I harvest it, ha-ha-ha. It is what the princes of old used to do, ha-ha-ha.” And the whole group would join in and cheer.
“This is what we fought for,” a general or colonel would say.
“That was before that reptile came,” a brigadier cut in one evening, shutting up every guest, all of them afraid that General Bazooka was going to erupt or reach for his gun.
“Forget about the reptile, Brigadier. When we are here, it does not exist, I can assure you.”
“Long live Marshal Amin Dada.”
There were times when General Bazooka drank and pissed and shat his pants. He would command his date to disrobe him and clean the mess. He would watch as the woman struggled not to show outward disgust, now and then firing his pistol and swearing. His bodyguards enjoyed the fuss and could be heard laughing in adjacent rooms.
For the orgies, the General had two houses in the suburbs. For decent parties, when he entertained normal guests, he went to his first wife’s home. He had given her a mansion at Kasubi, a place famous for the tombs of the banned kings. Driving past the tombs in his fleet of Boomerangs, headed and tailed by Stingers with soldiers hanging precariously on the sides like fruit bats, gave him untold satisfaction. At such moments he felt linked to the old kings, whose centuries of absolute rule he had played a part in ending, first with the attack on the palace, then when Marshal Amin refused to reinstate the kingdoms. As he rolled by, he would think back to 1942 when the last king was crowned. This man with titles such as the Professor of Almighty Knowledge, the Father of All Twins, the Cook with All the Fire-wood, the Power of the Sun, the Conqueror, had fled when he, Colonel Bazooka, had attacked his palace. The Conqueror had been in exile when Marshal Amin, King of Africa, created the new line of kings and princes now in power. It felt sublime to be the man of the moment.
When the body of the Conqueror was brought back to Uganda for burial in 1973, he had been the officer in charge of security at the airport, at Namirembe Cathedral, at the burial site. It was as if the Marshal wanted the people who had begun the demolition of this institution to hammer the last nail in its coffin. He liked to think that his father would have enjoyed seeing his son wielding so much power. Sleep well, old man, he would think, I hope there is a lot of booze where you are.
The only thing the General envied the old kings was the loyalty of their subjects. However grotesquely they misused their power, however many people they killed, people still loved and obeyed them, ready to give their lives for them. He remembered the lines of mourners filing past the coffin, orderly tear-sodden kilometres peopled by men and women who would have braved the hottest sun or the heaviest rain just to have the chance to peek at their king for the last time. As a non-monarchist, the sight made him sick. More so, because now he knew that not many southerners would mourn the passing of Marshal Amin’s regime; but then again, no one came to power in order to court a grand funeral procession. Power was there for more basic things, like a fleet of Boomerangs, money, the ability to hammer your word into law.
Through the tinted window of his car he saw civilians walking, cycling, hurrying to their destinations before the curfew set in. It was good not to be afraid of violating curfew laws as these men and women were. It seemed their world never changed: the old kings might as well have been lording it over these very same people; the new kings and princes were now having their turn. At one time he had been like them, caught in a static world devoid of power, shat on up to the eyeballs. Now he was doing the dumping on, and it felt good. At one time he was a victim, swaying to the whims and will of other men; now he was the one whom victims begged for mercy, the man they respected or feared, the man who had the option of treating them with utter contempt and getting away with it.
In the same vein, he had no respect for intellectuals; he had no respect for people paid to split hairs. That Bat was still alive was a miracle to him. How many times had he wanted to kill him? But each time his advisor, who believed that Bat was special, restrained him. Special, when he was a rabid dog? Talking to Robert Ashes? Rabid Dog had to be put down, if only to save the herd. As for the ministry, there was bound to be somebody else to run it. Rabid Dog had to go, Bazooka decided. He has made too much money too quickly, whereas it took me ages to get some decent cash in my pocket. I fought for this government; he didn’t. Where would this government be without me? Down in the sewers. It is not fair. Why does the government still need men like him?
The cars started climbing to the crest of the hill. He could see the top of his wife’s house beckoning, bragging, resisting the encroaching veils of the night because it stood at the very top. From the front, one could see the city sprawled out at one’s feet in a huge semicircle. From the back, distance-flattened forest and marshland took over up to the horizon. The hill was decked out in tall trees, fields, and grassy compounds. The owners of the houses along the way had been bought out or forced to move. These houses were now occupied by his bodyguards or very trusted friends. This was the place he loved most in the city. He loved hills in general. He never forgot that he had been born in a swamp and that Rabid Dog had been born in the embrace of a hill.
He emerged from the limo and swept the compound with his eyes. He loved the massive structure of the house, the huge windows, the large roof. He loved the brick-red walls and the brown tiles. The gigantic trees filled him with a vision of power greater than his. A thousand years old, they made him feel young, at the beginning of his life. At first, he had wanted to cut all the trees and use them for firewood, but his wife had told him that they were gods, visions of eternity. Now he loved them like extensions of himself.
Guests, faces upturned, teeth flashing, pressed forward to welcome him. It was as if they expected him to dish out miracles and turn drums of water into casks of gold. Among them he saw people who expected bigger things from him. These held back, waiting for his eye of recognition, his benediction. He shook hands, slapped backs, shared jokes. He walked among the dozens, feeling his robe touched, his body caressed, his spirit enlarging to embrace them all. Music was in the air. There was a drifting scent of beer and roast goat which made him feel rapaciously hungry. For the first time that week he felt happy, in his element.
His wife, tall, dark, erect, met him at the door. They exchanged greetings as if they had spent the whole week together. This meant that things were going well. She did not like his soldiers but had learned to put up with them, and they were extra-careful when she was in the vicinity. She had grown up around soldiers and her opinion of them was not high. For the same reason, she had refused a chauffeur-cum-bodyguard. She kept out of the limelight and only accompanied him to very special functions. She did her level best to keep family away from the madness of power. They had reached a mature understanding never to stand in each other’s way. They said goodbye as if for the last time and welcomed each other back as if they had not been apart. She never pried into his business, preferring not to know what he got up to with his friends. From early on she had made it clear that she would not tolerate drunken excess. Her house was a home, not a bar. He had felt disappointed because he had wanted to enjoy some of the wildness with her, as a way of showing how high they had climbed; but she would have none of it. He had begged, cajoled, commanded. In vain. Being his first wife, the one who had seen him through poverty, the one he could talk to, the one he fully trusted, the mother of his favourite children, he let her have her way.