In the evenings, he had meetings with a number of chiefs. He promised them cattle, cars, mansions, helicopters if they encouraged young men to join the army. He wanted to have men in the army who looked up to him, men he could trust. He could employ them as his personal bodyguard, a sort of personal army within the army to fight for him. He knew that his promises were hollow, but they were the currency a leader spent in order to get certain things done.
He missed being able to indulge his rage, the blazing urge to dominate, which he felt in the south. There was no kick in it here. Spitting beer at these people would only look and feel foolish. Shitting his pants would simply be pathetic. The south did things to him the north didn’t. The biggest part of him was down there; without it, he felt out of balance. It came to him that power was a very atmospheric liquor; where you drank it mattered most. Feeling lost, he decided to go and see his mother.
At Jinja his mother was very glad to see him. She had a big house among trees not far from the lake. She cooked him big meals, went with him for walks and showed him around. She liked the town, with its spacious roads, large houses, the nice weather. She really loved doing business, talking to customers, visiting local ones to see how her fish nets performed. She took him to visit her circle of friends, old ladies in their sixties and seventies. They met every week to drink tea and spend lazy afternoons talking about the past. He did not pay attention to what they said but liked the fact that they treated his mother with great respect. On the way home, she reminded him to bring the children to stay with her when the city became dangerous.
“It is so quiet here. It feels like another world. We spend weeks without hearing anybody shooting. The commanding officer of the barracks is extremely strict. Soldiers don’t fool around. I wish they could transfer you here. We would spend weekends together boating, eating, talking, watching the children grow.”
“It sounds so idyllic, Mother. It is all I ever wanted for you. I will send the children more often. It is not easy to get a transfer. They need me elsewhere.”
“It will break my heart to leave this town.”
“Nobody is going to make you leave this town. The government is in control. You don’t have to worry about anything. You talk as if the government were going to fall tomorrow.”
“When you grow old, you start to worry. So many memories. I see your father sometimes.”
“Is he still drinking?” he said, laughing.
“He seems calmer now.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have the money to buy booze.”
“Stop making cheap jokes about the dead.”
“No offence, Mother.”
GENERAL BAZOOKA LEFT feeling invigorated, spoiling for a fight. A prince back from travel had to show that he was again in residence, in total control. But his men were still being held by Ashes. So he called him and arranged a meeting to break the deadlock. He would gladly have carved him up like a grease-dripping chicken on a spit, but that would have to wait.
The two men met on the third floor of the Parliament Building, overlooking part of the city, which seemed laid down at their feet. There was no small talk. Ashes, a Havana smouldering in his hand like a gun, laid his cards on the table. He wanted Bat freed within twenty-four hours.
“I have started counting.”
“What if I refuse?”
“Marshal Amin would not be very pleased to hear that his orders have been disobeyed,” Ashes smirked and bared his teeth in a menacing gesture.
“Are you his messenger boy now?”
“There are things you don’t understand, General. Before I came along, this country was going down the latrine with corruption, smuggling, and all kinds of shit stinking to high heaven. I have cleaned it up. It is the only reason why the Marshal trusts me. If you people did your work with panache, I would not be here, would I? And about the messenger boy part; it is what we all are or try to be; some more capable than others.” He stuck the cigar in his mouth and took a drag.
General Bazooka took the insult like a hardened soldier, although he would very much have liked to gouge out the man’s eyeballs and made him eat them. He hated the Marshal for humiliating him through this man, this reptile, this scavenger who had come when everything was running smoothly. First he had taken his job; now he had paralyzed his ministry for weeks.
“I will release the bastard, but I want my men freed first.”
“I am the one squeezing the trigger. You kidnapped the man from this building, then you disappeared. Now you are expecting me to take your word, as if I were a whore you could fuck any time you wanted. No way. Deliver the man to me and then, only then, will I free your men. They have been well treated; they only need a good bath,” he said, creasing his nose in mock disgust.
“Tomorrow.”
“I don’t enjoy this any more than you do, General,” he rubbed the salt in Bazooka’s wound, “I am a very busy man, you know.”
The General rose to go. Ashes watched him coldly, as if looking at a cockroach crawl into a shithole, satisfied that he had won the little duel. Not a bad afternoon after all, he said to himself; first this sweet drama, then a swim in the lake.
ON THE DAY of Bat’s release, they dragged him from the basement where they had dumped him. They tore the clothes off his back and hosed him down in the compound like a car, scrubbing him with a stiff brush. They scrubbed and hosed and laughed till he felt raw all over. The soap suds went into his eyes, making the soldiers laugh harder. They let him drip dry like a shirt on a hanger, gave him a pair of trousers and a shirt and no underwear, and a pair of used Bata shoes with no socks. They put him in a Stinger and started driving round. They moved from lane to lane in an unfamiliar place of trees and shadows. He had spent the last days sleeping on gunny sacks next to old tools, broken televisions, and chairs. Now it seemed his ordeal was over, but he dared not celebrate. They stopped in front of a mansion hidden behind a steel gate and a tall wall. He was ordered to get out.
It was a grey day from yesterday’s rain. It felt as if he were walking into a trap. The guard at the gate opened it for him without asking questions. The compound was huge, and he walked on gravel flanked by patches of well-cut grass. A soldier opened the front door for him. Robert Ashes appeared and stood in the doorway. Bushy eyebrows, large forehead, thinning hair, close-together eyes, wide mouth. He looked mean and dangerous as always, a grenade about to go off, a pit bull terrier about to bite. He grinned at him and offered his hand. They exchanged greetings and he was invited inside. Large sofas, big carpets, hunting trophies on the walls: buffalo horns, a leopard skin, a lion’s bearded head, crossed elephant tusks, a rhino’s face, a stuffed eagle, and a three-metre python. He sat down and moments later his fomer colleagues walked in. They exited without saying a word. He was relieved because, in his ill-fitting clothes and shoes, with hair down to his shoulders, he did not have anything to say to them.
“You are free now. Aren’t you happy?” Ashes asked effusively, which looked odd on a face so morose.
“I am very excited.”
“You certainly don’t look it. By the way, where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“I am going to meet Marshal Amin to give him the good news. The crisis is over.”
“What crisis?”
“A British politician contacted us saying that a friend of his had disappeared. Marshal Amin gave me the task to free the man, and here you are.”