Bat did what he could, an effort that was like trying to dam a river with a few planks. His office was again on Parliament Avenue. In his free time he would think about the Parliament and its secrets. It would now and then give him the shivers, but he knew that his day would come to get back at the regime. Somebody was bound to turn up and show him a way.
The answer came during his wedding preparations. Amidst the bustle, with his people and Babit’s mixed in an effort to make it a memorable occasion, his brother asked him for a word. The timing could have been better, what with all the expenditure for the wedding, but Tayari had a dream and could wait no longer. They went to the lake and sat on a rock facing the water.
“We need help,” he said, turning to his brother.
“You and your woman?”
“Me and my friends.”
“I don’t seem to know any friends of yours.”
“I am a member of a fighting group.”
“Boxing, wrestling, kung fu. .”
“A dissident group, brother.”
“Don’t you know that it is not good for your health and our well-being?” Bat asked, to hide his shock and excitement.
“Everything is a risk. You were not a dissident, but they took half a year out of you.”
“What has that got to do with your group?”
“We are looking for sponsors.”
“Who isn’t? What are your plans? What have you achieved to merit my attention?”
“We spread Amin-Go-Away leaflets in the city. We now need money to buy radio equipment in order to spread the word nationwide.”
“The word is already out, if you don’t know.”
“We are going to preach it even harder.”
“Have you thought of the consequences? You are going to be on your toes all the time. Hunted. Do you like that prospect? Do you trust your instincts that much?”
“On the day the soldiers got powers of arrest, detention, torture, looting, the odds became clear. And as always it is the innocent who get hurt.”
“I agree, but I still see no way you are going to have an impact.”
“We are the civil wing. The military wing is in Tanzania. We need to pave the way for them. Like prophets announcing the coming of the Lamb,” he said, grinning.
“A blood-soaked lamb. Let me remind you, brother. I don’t want to be cited when confession time comes, you hear? Things are bad enough as they are. I don’t want to go back to prison. I have Babit to look after.”
“Calm down, big brother,” the young man said. “The moment we get the money, we disappear. My time as pyrotechnician is over. If I take up my fireworks again, it will be for another sort of celebration. Yours will be the last wedding I will do. I will of course keep on looking out for your best interests, but for the biggest part I will be out of your life.”
“Is this really what you want to do?”
“It is my vocation.”
Bat felt as though he were standing on a threshold, about to launch his brother into the world of dangers he courted. He was also aware that he had not been told the whole truth, but he felt in no position to stop the wheels turning. Let the young man face the world the way destiny cut for him. Maybe he would become a captain, a colonel or general, in the end. He seemed to have the dedication. All his life Tayari seemed to have been gathering himself to seize this moment. Bat felt a moment of intense excitement and closeness to his brother, his avenger. It felt as if he had plucked Tayari’s secret and added it to his own little pile.
“It is a deal,” he said, giving his brother a hand.
“I knew you would not let me down.”
“I trust that you know what you are doing. I don’t want Sister or anybody else blaming me later on.”
“I don’t like Victoria,” his brother declared, as if he had not heard what Bat had said. “Did you know that she works for the Bureau?”
“What?”
“She is a member.”
“How did you find out?” Bat said in an unsteady voice.
“Her story did not fit. I did a little homework afterwards.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“It was too late. You already had had a child with her by then.”
“She has been threatening Babit.”
“I know, that is why I decided to investigate her. I have been keeping an eye on her. If she does anything foolish. .”
“They are empty threats,” Bat said to defuse the situation.
“If they are empty, why is she still making them?”
“Harassment,” Bat replied to hide the fact that he was alarmed.
“Did you know that she used to be General Bazooka’s girlfriend? She was involved in a few nasty cases in the past, though of late she has been rather clean.”
“Do you think that the General put me in because of her?”
“I don’t know. It is possible that he planted her to go after you. You were one of his top employees, after all. But then again, maybe he did it for fun. Those guys are up to anything.”
“How did you figure these things out?”
“I have friends who know people who know things. When you disappeared, I tried to use them to find out where you were, but they failed. Don’t worry; my boys will be keeping an eye on Victoria. When did you last see her?”
“A fortnight ago,” Bat mumbled, feeling dizzy. That his brother knew these things made him nervous, afraid, angry. Another stasher of secrets? How many was the bastard sitting on? Now he was doling them out.
“What did she say about the threats?”
“That they were harmless, that she was deeply in love with me. She kept calling me her saviour and miracle-worker.”
“Don’t worry. Go and enjoy the wedding, big brother. Leave the rest to me.”
Bat was shocked to hear how mature and confident his brother sounded. He had fooled everybody with his silence, hiding his astuteness and toughness from the world.
THE WEDDING WAS MODEST in scale but very well done. The day began with the sort of rain which made a day in bed seem a seductive option. But the sun came out, created rainbows and dried the dampness off everything. There was a motorcade, dark cars tailed with colourful ribbons and flowers, slowly making its way past the golf course, the State House and the airport. Tayari exploded his last fireworks. The sound of music gently eased the evening into night. Babit glowed and beamed. All the people Bat cared about were present. It was a day that would haunt him with its beauty.
AS SOON AS TAYARI and his three friends got the money, they left the city and settled in the town of Bulezi, thirty kilometres from Kampala. One of them had inherited his late father’s house a few years back. They opened a car repair shop at the front. Two operated it while the others organized things behind the scene. The idea of a radio station had been a fiction from the start. It had been the only way to get Bat to release the cash. They had guessed right that an intellectual would not be thrilled by the truth, thus the sugar-coating. In the violent world of spying which they had been part of for years, words without action counted for nothing. They were sure that not even the dissidents would have respected the radio plan. The culture had changed.
They knew that they could have gone back to their families, married, had kids, taken jobs and waited for the regime to fall. But the bug of the times had infected them. Without their doses of adrenaline, without moving closer to the flame, without the feeling that they held their lives in their hands, they would have felt useless. Only with the instruments of death and destruction in their charge did they feel safe, in command. Disarmed, incapable of action, they were civilians, kids, women, the very symbol of the defencelessness they had been taught to despise. Yoked to the obscure cause of liberation, their bombs would be double-edged swords, soothing their personal demons and bringing them closer to the day when the regime would fall. They didn’t know what the fighters in Tanzania were up to, and what would happen when they came. They didn’t know whether they would be alive in a year or two or less. They were just determined to be in a position where they could not be ignored or kicked about.