“The gardener told me that we had been given a day off. I did not ask him why. He had to know because he talked a lot with the late Mrs. Katanga. . I don’t know anybody who might have wanted to kill her. She had no enemies. The only person who did not like her was Victoria, the woman with whom Mr. Katanga has a child. She used to threaten her on the phone. . Apart from her I know nobody who might have liked to harm her. .”
THE GARDENER WAS FOUND late that evening. “Somebody with a State Research Bureau identity card told me to inform the cook to stay away, because he said that there were investigations scheduled for the day, regarding Mr. Katanga’s work, and they wanted nobody around. .”
The remaining question was: where was this Victoria?
TAYARI APPEARED THAT NIGHT. He sent an emissary, who asked Bat to go to the lake and wait for him. As Bat walked through the trees to the lake, he felt the urge to escape the place. It seemed to ring with Babit’s death, like a cave that multiplied the sound, bouncing it against its walls. The lake stretched out in front of him. He looked at its dark-grey skin caught in the moonless night and felt disgusted by its indifference, its perpetuity. It was as if Babit had never visited it, loved it. Nothing seemed to matter to it. He stood in one spot, shivering, wishing to go somewhere very far away, a place Babit had never been. Maybe to the islands to catch parrots and fish. He hated the house with its history of British governors, its pomp, its indifference to time. The last governor had abandoned it and built a bigger house, the current State House. Maybe the others before him had also suffered disasters in its walls, uncharted miseries written in their tombs. He wanted to leave this town and forget it all. He wanted it encircled by water and swallowed whole, with its airport, and the roads Babit had walked. He wanted it reduced to a memory, a flicker in somebody’s mind.
“Brother,” a voice said to him, “I am extremely sorry about what happened. Maybe if I had taken more care of you, this would not have occurred.”
“I doubt that even you could have changed things,” Bat replied hoarsely.
“I happen to know where Victoria is.”
“You do?” The words seemed to echo endlessly.
“She is in Bombo. Do you have a message for her?”
“I want her to stay out of my life forever.”
“I can plant a device in her house — of course, when the girl is out.”
“We don’t know whether she is the one responsible.”
“It is crystal-clear. There is nobody else who hated Babit that much. The work was too clinical to have been unplanned. She is responsible. I bet my arm she is guilty.”
“I don’t want anything to do with bombs,” Bat said, feeling extremely weary.
“Do you want her dead in another fashion? Just give me the word.”
“I don’t want to kill her.”
“You don’t! Do you want that creature to remain eating and breathing after what it did to your wife?”
“I don’t want anybody’s death on my conscience.”
“The responsibility would be mine, big brother. I would do it as a favour, a show of gratitude. You have helped my group and the country so much.”
“I can’t kill my daughter’s mother.”
“But she has killed all the children Babit would have produced. Aren’t you mad about that?”
“Yes, I am. But killing is not my line of business.”
“Give me her legs. I will put her in a wheelchair for you.”
“Listen to yourself, brother. You talk like those men you are fighting.”
“I can’t allow injustice to go unpunished. It is the very reason why this country is still dominated by soldiers. Everybody is afraid to do a thing against them. I have done something, and I am sure that it has helped.”
“I never gave you money to make bombs,” Bat mumbled weakly.
“The radio could not work. Those thugs have no respect for words. They respect dynamite. And fire. They are looking for me, but before they get me, I will put many in hospital.”
“Where does all this violence come from?”
“I decided to offer myself to the nation. To die for the cause. It is a vocation, like priesthood. You are lucky that I am here itching to avenge my sister-in-law’s death.”
“Don’t touch even a hair on Victoria’s head. The law will deal with her.”
“Do you believe that? Do you really believe that, big brother? Is that Cambridge University talking or utter resignation?”
“The law will take care of her. That is how we do it. Babit was not a violent person. Nobody is going to die in her name.”
Tayari threw his hands in the air with frustration. If he could, he would have thrown his brother on the ground and punched his face or made him eat wet sand. “The law! There is no law in this country, except the gun. The bigger the better. Soldiers have the licence to kill. I take that licence in my hands and I want to use it.”
“You don’t mean it.”
“After letting you down, I want to do you right and let you know beforehand. It is the reason why I did not attack her secretly.”
“Look here, brother. I want you to find the killers and put them in the hands of the police. They will lead the investigators to her, and the law will take its course.”
“I don’t understand you, big brother. Maybe I never have. But I respect you. You are educated, but you have balls. Coming back after Cambridge made me respect you. Coming back after detention made me fear you. Any other person would have stayed in London and fucked Uganda. It is the only reason why I am going to do as you say.”
“I trust that you will keep your word. Take care.”
“You too. Oh, by the way, were you not happy when you heard that my piece had taken care of the General’s wife?”
“It doesn’t help me now, does it? Babit is gone. Go and find her killers.”
“I won’t let you down.”
With that he slipped away in the darkness. Bat did not even hear his footfalls. It was as if he had flown away. Should I have sanctioned Victoria’s death? Wouldn’t some of Babit’s people have been happy to get the news of her killer’s demise? I don’t expect Tayari to understand my position. For him justice excuses everything, the way Victoria believes that love excuses everything. They are both on the run. One hunting the other, the other hunted by the security forces, Bat thought. That two women’s lives had been destroyed because of him saddened him, the kind of sadness his brother could not understand because in his world there were no half-measures. Victoria, the love extremist, had now discovered that too much love killed, that it was a drug that needed dilution if the user was not to be killed by the poison of its concentration.
He looked at the house in the distance, reduced to a bunch of lights dimly penetrating the foliage. He had no wish to go back there. He had no wish to face the people, and the weight of the memories, and the night. He had no wish to smell the cooking, hear the voices, sense their sympathies. He wanted to walk into the lake and repose in its ageless bosom. Many had found eternal rest there. The more he considered it, the more attractive the prospect became. What more do I want to achieve? I have seen it all, at least as much as I can stomach, he said to himself aloud. As the temptation mounted, crashing in his chest, swelling in his head, making his ears sing, he heard somebody calling him. It was the Professor.