by Maggie Gee
‘I’ve checked the list. You’re in World Traveller.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiles, ecstatic: she’s pulled it off. She’s been upgraded to World Traveller. And then she’s suspicious. A sinking of the heart.
‘Is that an upgrade?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
People are listening. She trudges forward.
Vanessa, oh, Vanessa. Travel safely.
3
In a street of new bungalows in a suburb of Kampala, Mary Tendo and Charles and their daughter Theodora and the maid, Mercy, are settled for the evening. Mercy is just finishing the washing up. Then she will lie down beside the baby, Theodora, who is humming wordlessly to herself. Mary is staring at the slightly clunky laptop that looked modern when Charles gave it her, four years ago.
She has come in here because she cannot be bothered to watch the shenanigans of Big Brother Africa, where people sit half-naked all day by the jacuzzi, and nobody talks in complete sentences, though of course she would like a Ugandan like Maureen to win it, and certainly not two-timing Bertha from Zimbabwe. Charles has fallen asleep as he watches on the sofa. So she’s come into the bedroom to write her Life of Mary Tendo, which she has been neglecting, now she is so busy, and many would say it was a waste of time. She’s enjoying re-reading all she has written. As she reads, she frowns, or laughs, or looks sad.
When she was in UK, it was shown to an agent, and for a while everybody got very excited, including a big British publisher. But they found Mary Tendo was no pushover. She would not rewrite her life to make it more thrilling. And particularly, they wanted to know more about the times when she shared a bed with Justin. (Because he was depressed, and she could cheer him.) And they wanted her to put in many details, of things which she never confirmed had happened. And they said ‘It’s normal, everyone does it, in the modern world there’s no distinction between fact and fiction. Modern readers are sophisticated, Mary. And if you beef it up, you will have big sales.’ As she thinks about this, she becomes indignant. Her strong, ridged fingers buzz over the keys like hornets hurrying to feed their brood. Because sometimes she can only talk to her journal. But after one paragraph, she feels discontented. She chooses a new, more assertive typeface, and as she does so she becomes aware that actually, she is holding off sadness.
I was right to refuse to add the passages they wanted. I am a Ugandan. And I am a Christian. We are not like the British, we are not immoral (though not all the British are immoral. Vanessa Henman was not immoral; no-one would care to be immoral with her. Though I sometimes suspected her of sleeping with Trevor. Since they were once married, it would not have been immoral. But I must have been wrong. He is a sensible man.)
The English publishers asked for a picture of me. I think they would have liked me to look slightly indecent. The photographer they sent, who was American, and sweaty, and smiled too much, with red eyes like a fish, could not remember my name for five minutes, and said, ‘Loosen up, Maria, it’s the 21st century!’ I preferred to retain my glasses and jacket. The photographer got cross and went away. And many small quarrels began with the publisher, because I did not like the promises in the contract, and the woman they called my editor was young and impertinent. She had crossed eyes and too few clothes. She also had a poor grasp of English, and was not happy when I tried to explain it. Her level of education was not high, though I was tactful and did not say so. Perhaps I hinted at it a little. Then, just because I had not signed the contract, they cancelled it in a letter from a lawyer that began ‘Without prejudice’. Without prejudice! Obviously the publishers were prejudiced against me.
I do not regret that I did not get published, though I felt a little cross when Vanessa, who was jealous, said, ‘I thought it wouldn’t come to anything, Mary.’ The UK publishers never offered her so much money. Perhaps because her novels did not tell a story, and had sentences which trailed on for ever. I suppose she would not have refused to take her clothes off. She often did situps in her pyjamas.
In fact, perhaps I do regret it, though it is not worth being sad about. Other things in life are more important, but Vanessa did not realise it.
And Mary re-reads what she has written, and thinks, I am not really happy with this typeface. For what I need to write, it is a little loud. She scrolls through the list: Consolas, Constantia, Futura, Lucida, Perpetua ... the best, the most serious is Times New Roman.
I feel strange when I think about going to the village. I have longed and planned to go back to Notoke, but now the day is almost upon me. Because of what? I must look in my heart.
Jamil, my son, my lovely boy. My son is an absence, always trying to grow bigger, but I dare not let it eat up my soul. Life is hard, and short, and we have to live it.
And my kabite, Charles, is also in my heart, but he never troubles me (except when he is lazy about doing the shopping and goes to Garden City and spends too much money, because he likes to drop into Aristoc bookshop, instead of buying cheaply, in the market). He is a good man, if a little skinny. And then there is our daughter, as he always reminds me. She has a beautiful name, Theodora. Perhaps I wanted her to be a boy, but she is my daughter and I will love her.
And my brother, my sisters, and aunties, and nieces and nephews are in my heart too, though they have grown distant. I sometimes sent them money when I was in London, though not every month, because London is expensive, and some of those girls are not well-behaved, though of course my sister gets cross and denies it, because a mother must defend her children, but I know they go too often to the beer-shop near Notoke, and what if people say they are prostitutes? Still I wish that, like her, I had many children.
Oh, I do not want to go home to the village with only one small daughter. Without my son, nga silina mutabani wange.
When I was in London, nearly twenty years ago, I thought with longing about Notoke. I lay awake listening to the beat of my heart. It was loud and lonely on my cold pillow. I thought about the sound of the women of my village pounding groundnuts in their wooden mortars, thud-ah, thud-ah like the blood in my body, which longed to be back in the place from which it came.
But the village will have changed, and so have I. Mary Tendo is what? Is she a woman from the village? Mary Tendo has become a woman of the world.
Yet I will never forget my childhood, the hours under the mango tree on Saturday after we children had swept the compound, and fetched water, and seen to the goats. We were never ill-mannered to our parents. We were happy so long as they did not beat us. We would tell each other stories. People liked mine best. And the English publishers liked them also, although they were arrogant, and wanted to ‘improve’ them.
Will there still be villages, in Uganda’s future? Perhaps they will all have electricity and running water (although this is hard for me to believe). The children will no longer be taking it in turns, at nightfall, to peer out from the branches of the jackfruit tree on the hill, as we did, towards the distant city lights like a net of stars. The villagers will have their own line of bright streetlights, and travel to the city in safe, airy buses, with uniformed drivers who know road safety. (They will have to sack all the old drivers, for no Ugandan bus driver can be trusted!)
I cannot believe these days will come. Our leaders let us down, and the foreign governments. They give us money, but later they steal from us. It is not so easy to reach the future. We seem to have been running towards it for years, and it always slips away beyond the horizon.
And my son is slipping away, like the future. I can no longer see him clearly, my first-born child, my most dear and beloved, the child of my heart, from my first love, Omar. The full curve of his mouth, his long curling lashes, his skin, which is darkest gold, not black like me. I am left with only photos, which I look at every night, so that Charles is sad for me, and strokes my hand, and brings me a cup of milky coffee. But Jamil cannot look like his photos any more, though they are all I have of him. He is five years older. If he survives. If my son survives, he is over 20
. If my son lives, he has become a man. With a man’s jaw, and a man’s memories of the years he has lived away from home. Years of which I, Mary Tendo, know nothing.
And happiness is what? To see your son become a man. There are many who take this happiness for granted.
But Omar and I could not stay together, and I try not to blame him for leaving me. For he was a good man, and true to his religion, and he became more devout, with the years, and of course, as a Christian, I could not follow him. But I knew that every boy needs a father. And if I had known, I would have given anything, I would have sold my flat and my furniture, I would have forced Charles to sell his business, to pay for Jamil to fly safely home to Entebbe, but my son wanted to be independent, and not to bother either of his parents; and his father, of course, has a new Arab family, and perhaps his new wife is mean, or greedy, but I cannot blame Omar, for Jamil did not tell him, he just set off overland by bus, which might have brought him down through southern Sudan and the terrible northern lands of the Acholi, where there has been war for 20 years, and perhaps Museveni does not want to stop it, and for this, for this he will NEVER be forgiven, tasobola kusonyiyibwa, I could never forgive the death of my son –
But I must not think like this. Perhaps I have lost focus. I must be positive, and count my blessings.
My history is interesting: thank you, Jesus. I have travelled the world, with Omar, my husband, who worked for the Libyan Embassy, and my husband loved me, as I never forget, although later we quarrelled, and times grew hard, and our families were not there, and could not support us, and Omar changed, and I changed also. But because of Omar, I had my son.
I cannot say, I have my son.
I must not think about my son.
Because of Omar, I saw Leptis Magna, and we were young, and we walked, together, on the Roman stones of the road to Carthage. And we saw the forum, and the carved jars of wine, and we stood, hand in hand, in the white stone theatre, which curved like the moon, and was open to the sea, which stretched away for ever, like our future. But slowly it has dwindled, and turned into the past.
Most Ugandans have never been to Libya. And even the British have never been there. Vanessa was impressed, and a little jealous.
And now she has her son, and I do not. It is rare for the British to lose their children.
I don’t mind the British. Usually I like them, although they are ignorant of history. I grew quite fond of them when I was in London. They are like spoiled children, but some have good hearts. And when they come to Uganda, they become like babies, afraid of everything, so we have to help them. They fear the heat, and the mosquitoes, and the water, and snakes in the country, and robbers in the city, and go everywhere by special taxi, and waste their money, which they have too much of.
I am only writing this because my heart is aching. It is hard not to think about Jamil today. I am no longer able to be completely hopeful, which is a weakness, but my strong heart falters
so now I must get up, and go to the kitchen where Mercy is sleeping with little Theodora, and scoop her from under the mosquito-net, and hug her beautiful fat small body, and bury my face on her sweet hot neck, to remind myself that I am not barren, that I still have a child, thanks God, thanks Jesus, and then, when she begins to wriggle and mutter, I slip her back in beside Mercy, and then I feel stronger and can write again
I am better with this baby when she is asleep, for then she reminds me of my son
but when she cries, she cries differently, and my heart hardens, which is not her fault
and also, I fear losing her, I lost one child I could lose another
If Jamil came down through the north, on his own, he could have been captured, he could have been killed. Because the Lords’ Resistance Army replaces its soldiers with abducted children and young people. They make the children kill other children.
And yet I have become like a starving man who longs to gnaw shoes or string as food, because I would rather
I cannot write it, No, I will write it
Because I would rather Jamil was a killer, that my kind young son killed and tortured others, than that he is lost. Entirely lost. Perhaps my son is utterly lost. And now I will be lost, because I think these things.
Jesus forgive me for thinking these things
‘Honey it’s time to stop writing. You will hurt your eyes, and need stronger glasses. I am going to bring you a juice before bedtime.’ It is Charles, with his shirt-tails outside his trousers.
But in fact Mary is no longer writing, she is staring at the screen, because the pain has become too great to write down.
‘I will stop writing, though I am not tired.’
She will never rest until Jamil is found.
4
‘You go.’
‘You go.’
‘Oh, you go, I’m dead.’
‘OK, I’ll go.’
Young parents’ early morning conversations. They aren’t really being selfish: too sleepy for that. Each body is speaking from primal need. Today, Zakira’s is more pressing than Justin’s, and so he rolls sideways off their futon, and blunders next door, into the blue-themed bedroom with its alphabets and numbers, its mobile of African animals, elephants, giraffes, hippopotamuses, its big single bed that makes his son look small, for he has not long left the comfort of a cot. Justin looks at his watch: 4.45 AM. ‘My favourite time,’ he mumbles to himself. Abdul Trevor has not been sleeping well. He has a cold, and he sometimes has nightmares.
Justin gazes down lovingly on his flushed son. ‘Coffin,’ says Abdy, reproachfully, and Justin decodes it as merely ‘Coughing.’ ‘Sorry, old chap’, he says, ‘Daddy’s here. Let’s give you a drink of water, shall we?’
He feels his son’s forehead. Very hot. Then he feels his own, which is even hotter. Either both or neither of them is dying. He knows he mustn’t be an anxious father. But his own father, Trevor, was quite laid-back, and got it in the neck, for that reason, from his mother. He inspects his son’s bed. It is only September but he does seem to have rather a lot of blankets. Vanessa’s always saying so, in any case. She thinks Zakira puts too many clothes on him. These views she conveys to him in strict confidence. ‘Don’t say a word to Zakira, of course. It’s cultural,’ she says, grandly. ‘Moroccans naturally think England is freezing.’ (Though actually England is getting quite hot. This year it has sometimes been hotter than Morocco.)
Sighing, tentative, Justin removes a blanket. It is soft and blue, with a giant cream bunny. If Zakira notices, he will blame Abdul Trevor, who is capable of kicking anything off. Justin leaves it in a deliberately crumpled heap on the floor. ‘There you are, old chap. All better,’ he croons.
Abdul Trevor wants to tell him about his dream, but he hasn’t got the words. ‘Ganma hairy,’ he says, conversationally, hoping to make his father stay a bit longer.
‘Yes, Grandma’s gone away, but she’ll be back,’ agrees Justin, stroking a sweaty streak of hair from his son’s forehead.
‘Ganma a grilla,’ Abdul Trevor explains, but Justin isn’t getting it: too early in the morning.
‘Grandma loves you. She sent you a kiss.’ He plants one softly on Abdy’s cheek. ‘Night night, sleep tight.’ He is tip-toeing away.
‘Grilla was bad,’ the child cries half-heartedly. But Daddy has gone, and Abdul Trevor sucks his thumb until he falls into a dream where his grandma is back to her usual self, and no longer crossly swinging black hairy arms from the top of his sky-blue, cloud-painted wardrobe.
5
Thirty-one thousand feet above the ground, Vanessa Henman is trying to sleep, though she can’t get comfortable, in all her clothes. She has moved her watch to Uganda time, she is getting ready for life in Kampala, and in Kampala, it is 1.15 AM, so there are not many hours before she has to wake up again. They will be landing at 7.45, breakfast should arrive around 6.45, which would still be the middle of the night, in London, and all this maths is making her anxious. Besides, last night she did not sleep at all. Perhaps it
is the Malarone, which always affects her, her little red pills which should keep her safe from cerebral malaria, though as she told her friend Fifi, ‘There’s no 100 per cent guarantee, you know. It is slightly risky, even with Malarone. And Malarone does have side effects.’ She wanted Fifi to think her brave, because Fifi has certainly never been to Africa, but Fifi just remarked in a rather casual way, ‘I knew somebody who used homoeopathy instead.’
‘Did it work?’
‘It worked for weeks –’
‘Perhaps I should try it –’
‘Until she got bitten, which was bad luck.’
Vanessa did go and ask her doctor about it, but he was a tad narrow-minded, and brisk. ‘There’s a name for people who protect themselves from malaria with homeopathy.’
‘Oh, what is it? I’ll put it in my story.’ (For she’s planning to write about her African trip. It is certainly time for her to publish again.)
‘A corpse,’ said the doctor, looking pleased with himself.
But still, Vanessa does not want to die, and she has four white boxes of pills in her luggage. She shifts, restless, in her narrow seat, and moves her wedding ring around her finger, the thin Irish band that Trevor bought her so long ago, when they were both poor, which she’s wearing to Uganda because it might protect her. She is trying to forget what had happened upon boarding.