by Lara Blunte
"How chic," I said, "You've chartered a flight?"
"Not really," Chris said as we walked towards the plane. "Tony, my friend, lent it to me."
We were at the plane now. He threw our small bags in and closed the back door. He motioned toward the co-pilot seat.
"And where will you sit?"
"Don't worry," he told me.
I didn't know if I liked the idea of sitting as co-pilot in such a small plane, even if I was not going to have to act as one. I had flown in such planes before, on assignments, but I had always been in the back, where I could close my eyes and sing until it was over.
I was thinking these things when the pilot's door opened. Chris climbed in and started to look at a log, flipping switches.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Getting ready," he told me. "You need to strap yourself in and then put this on, he pointed at big headphone.
"Where is the pilot?"
"Here!" he said as he went on with his preparations.
"Oh, no! Oh, no!"
He was already laughing. “Come on, a new adventure for Reporter Roberta!"
"Do you mean death as an adventure?"
I turned around to look for the handle on a door that suddenly seemed very flimsy but, still laughing, Chris took hold of my elaborate seatbelt and pulled it, clicking it into place.
"What makes you think you can fly this thing?" I asked in desperation.
"My license."
"You have a pilot's license?"
"I do. Otherwise it would be highly illegal, not to mention profoundly stupid."
"Why do you have a license?"
"I told you, little to do here. One gets up to all sorts of things."
He had closed his door and strapped himself in and now, when he flipped a switch, something happened, the plane was suddenly "on."
"Chris, Chris, Chris, let's talk about this like reasonable people!" I begged.
"Sure," he said, but there was a man on the dirt field motioning us forward and the plane was moving.
"How many hours of practice do you have?"
"Enough to have a license."
"And…and…and, do you fly often?"
"Often enough."
"Your answers are not very reassuring," I cried, holding on to my seat.
"Listen,” he said, “whatever you do, don't scream into that mouthpiece, because it will go right in my ear."
And that was it. The plane just went forward faster and faster and then we were in the air, but my eyes were closed and I was too busy swallowing the heart that had come up to my throat to scream. I felt we were a bit wobbly at first, as these tiny planes always are and then I felt the sun in my face. I opened my eyes and there we were, flying in the blue.
"Are you with us?" I heard his voice through the headphones, louder than the noise of the plane, which was very loud.
"I am!"
"There won't be any onboard service, I'm afraid, though I know how much you would have loved some champagne. Just relax and enjoy the view!"
And I did enjoy it. We flew over the Nile and I saw the crocodiles and hippos, then we were over the savannah where herds of buffaloes, antelope and zebras seemed almost to run ahead of us.
Afterwards there was a forest, then rivers, waterfalls and lakes and finally towns and villages.
"Roger, Delta, Tango," I said into the mouthpiece. "You did see those mountains ahead, didn't you?"
"What mountains?”
"Stop! This is like Out of Africa!" I said. "You know, that film where for some reason Robert Redford tells Meryl Streep not to move when they are having sex?"
"Yes, I know."
"He did crash that plane in the end," I informed him.
Chris only laughed more and I started to hum the music from the film. I noticed he was wincing,
"You really can't carry a tune..." he said shaking his head.
"If this were Out of Africa, we would fly over some flamingos and then I would cry."
He smiled, my beautiful pilot.
No, not mine. The beautiful pilot smiled.
A Dress
Kampala was just as I had left it, red dirt, traffic and roundabouts where born-again men in dark suits thumped their Bibles furiously and predicted very bad things for everyone.
Schoolchildren in uniform were flooding the streets then, going home for the day. The girls, in navy blue skirts, had shaved heads and yet they looked as beautiful as models. Posters along our way warned people to not be promiscuous, told men not to drink and not to beat their wives.
I could see from the back seat that Chris was impatient, which he normally wasn't. He kept telling the driver in Luganda to take this way or that and overtake this car or that. Finally he convinced the man to stop and they exchanged seats. Chris drove the taxi with the owner as passenger.
When we were in a big hotel room that overlooked the city, I threw myself on the bed and asked him, "What were you doing, we weren't in a hurry!"
"That's the dickhead in me," he said. "I told you, I can't stand to be driven."
"Really? Is that why you learned to pilot a plane?"
"A little bit."
"When you are in a huge Boeing, are you thinking of taking over the cockpit?"
"A little bit, though I don't know how to pilot those."
I laughed very hard at this and he looked a bit ashamed, like a boy. "I can't help it."
"So, would you ever let me drive you anywhere?"
He shook his head.
"Really?" I insisted.
"Really."
“What if you were catatonic?”
“Maybe not even then.”
"But what is it that makes you..."
"I don't know," he said. "Probably a control issue."
"Maybe you are like the silverback, controlling everything..."
"I don't think I am. Being the alpha is a lot of work — I think I would be the rogue, the one that leaves the group."
"But how can you be a successful control freak, if there is no group and no one to control?"
"It's only inside moving contraptions that I am a control freak."
"A bicycle too? Or a motorcycle? What about a boat?"
"You'll drive me crazy!" he cried, throwing himself next to me.
"At least I'll be driving!" I said.
We made love in the big bed, in the 70s room full of naughty mirrors and then I asked, "Can you tell me in what other ways you are a dickhead?"
He seemed to draw a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. “I think you’ll find out.”
I didn’t say anything, but I must have looked petrified, because he kissed me and said, “It’s not anything like what you’re thinking…”
Isn’t it? What is it then, damn it?
"Can you warn me about ways in which you are not perfect, at least?" I asked wryly.
"You go first,” he said.
“I do have a certain tendency to drink, though I am not really an alcoholic. Sometimes I just like to get a buzz."
"I think your liking for champagne is adorable and very expensive," he said and added, "I get very grumpy when I'm tired."
"You and seven billion other people. I am very stubborn."
"I hadn't noticed that," he said with a smile. “I am a bit proud and that gets on the way of raising money for the hospital."
He looked pained at this, so I kissed him.
"Do you only have noble faults? What about looking at women's breasts?"
He bent to kiss mine and that shut me up.
When it was time to get dressed we had to call housekeeping to get our clothes back from laundry. Thankfully, my wedding dress had not been ruined by the dry cleaning; in fact, it looked new. I hung it in the bathroom and stared at it as I felt my heart thump at the thought of my wedding day. But then I muttered fuck it, which is my go-to phrase to get over things. I got into the shower.
I washed my hair, dried it with a bit of a curve at the bottom, then I made a cat's eye with bl
ack liner and put on some light lipstick. I had decided to wear the sapphire earrings and a silver bracelet I had bought in Cambodia. The dress fit me well now that I had gained weight. I climbed into my peep toe shoes, feeling how unaccustomed I had grown to heels.
It gave me another pang, more painful this time, to see myself in that dress, but I muttered fuck it again and walked resolutely out of the bathroom. Chris was staring out of the window.
And when he turned around — well, friends, he was the man mothers say doesn't exist anymore: tall and broad-shouldered in his impeccable light grey suit and his tasteful tie. A doctor, my mother would have screamed and proceeded to handcuff him to something so that he would marry my sister or me.
We walked towards each other and he took my hands as he looked me up and down.
“Now I feel like blowing this fundraiser,” he said.
Turning to our reflection in the mirror, I saw that we looked like a beautiful couple in one of these 60s heist or spy films, ready to make millions of dollars. I could almost hear the soundtrack.
"Let's go get that money!" I said.
Chris's friend, Tony, was from one of the rich East Indian families in Uganda, whose fortune had been made from sugar. These families had known trouble under Idi Amin Dada, who gave them ninety days to get out of the country in 1972. Their properties, factories and businesses had then been appropriated. Everything had gone to rack and ruin, taking the economy along.
In the mid-80s the current present invited the Indian community back and they had flourished again.
We went to Tony’s house early. He was holding the fundraiser there and we arrived with enough time to have a first drink with him. Tony was an elegant, urbane man and his house, on the hills of Kampala, was beautiful. It gleamed brightly in the dark night as we were served champagne.
“She’s happy now,” Chris said, smiling at me.
“Of course,” Tony said.
“It tickles my nose, so I laugh,” I said of the bubbles.
Tony had a projector and we tried it out by connecting the pen drive with the photos to it. The images flashed on the wall, each photo remaining for a moment: Eva smiling in the wheelchair, the children, Musiga, Adroa, some patients in bed looking as if they would make it, the staff.
Our host looked at every photo, then turned to me and smiled, “Quite extraordinary!”
“That’s what I said,” Chris pointed out.
“We see them,” Tony added.
Having set everything up, we sat outside for a bit. Tony had gone to school in England, probably to an exclusive private school, and he said the word atrocious a lot, which I found really funny.
“How do you like Uganda?” he asked, offering me a cigarette.
I declined and so did Chris. Tony lit a cigar.
“I love it,” I said. “I had only ever seen West Africa…”
“Oh, it’s atrocious!” Tony said, waving his hand.
“…It’s quite different,” I told him. “Once we went looking for animals in Côte d’Ivoire, we couldn’t find any. According to the guide there ought to have been a hippo called Charlie somewhere, but he didn’t show up.”
“Abidjan is an atrocious place!” Tony exclaimed.
I could see that Tony’s uncompromising opinions also amused Chris. Our host kept finding lots of things atrocious, like air travel, Paris, matooke, the number of ministries in Uganda’s government and sushi.
“I am dying for some,” I said.
“Don’t have it here,” Tony warned me. “Do you know how many times a day the power gets cut off in Kampala? You’ll catch some atrocious bug!”
People had then started arriving and Tony went to greet them. Chris took a deep breath. “Ready for this?”
I put my glass down with a determined gleam in my eyes. “Absolutely!”
Much later, after the evening was over, I remembered that Socrates had said in The Symposium, his one dialogue about earthly passion, that when two people in love went into a battle or an undertaking together, they fought harder and more splendidly, and the pride they felt in each other increased their love.
I put on a performance that evening, to get funds that were needed for the hospital, for the patients, for the children, for the doctors — for Chris.
Many great businessmen were present at the cocktail, and I became an atomic bomb of charm. I was introduced as the photographer and they commented on the pictures, and asked me about my experience there. I moved in their midst and talked of the hospital, convinced and cajoled, made them laugh and told them they should uncap their pens and open their checkbooks!
Several of them laughed at how eagerly I took their checks, how fast I put them in my Cambodian silk clutch, to then go on to another victim. They started to warn each other as a joke, or to send me over to their competitors on purpose.
And when I looked at my beautiful lover, he was watching me. His eyes told me that he was proud and thankful, and my eyes told him that I would do anything for him.
My biggest challenge was a very, very rich Indian businessman, Mr. Bedelia, who was renowned for being a tight fist. I almost pawed the ground before I went to take him on.
Chris shook his head as I started walking towards him. “Don't try it," he seemed to be saying.
Mr. Bedelia was a hard customer, moving away, giving his back to me, even telling me that I didn't fool him. But I followed him, I ducked under his arm to stand face to face with him and I made him laugh; and then again he would escape, fast for a man his size and I would run after him.
In the end he looked up to heaven as if summoning help. “I will do anything to get rid of you!"
"Then write me a check!" I told him.
As he wrote it, shaking his head, I looked up at him with a display of lashes. "I think you are forgetting a zero!" I said.
He laughed very loudly at this and added the zero. He gave us $40,000 and told me that if anyone found out I would be toast. But then, instead of smoking his cigar in peace, as he swore he wanted to do, he took me by the arm and helped me get money from all his friends.
When the fundraiser was over, Chris thanked Tony and I kissed him.
"Either you keep her, or I will," Tony told Chris.
"She’s atrocious,” Chris said. “But I'm keeping her.”
Tony laughed and waved us goodbye. Back at the hotel, we walked into the elevator and there were other people inside, but I felt his pinky taking mine. We both looked at the numbers going up: 3, 4, 5, 6...
No one else came out with us on our floor, so we started running through the long corridor and laughing, as if we had truly pulled off the heist of the century. We ran inside the room and threw ourselves on the bed. I opened the clutch and found all the checks stuffed inside.
I threw them in the air and we laughed and laughed and laughed and he kissed me and kissed me.
I had done well for my beloved, you see, and he was proud of me. And that dress forever became a happy dress: not the dress that ruined a life, but the dress that helped save many.
Homeland
Our trip was not finished: Chris had to go home, to the east.
"Everyone meets everyone's parents in Uganda. You don't have to feel embarrassed, it’s not a big deal," he told me.
It's true that I was curious to meet his mother and to see Mount Elgon, the place his family was from. He hadn’t much talked about the earlier part of his life, but now he was going to show me where he had grown up.
Chris went to the bank in Kampala and deposited the checks. He came back telling me that between the previous night's takings, some transfers that had been made that morning and donations from abroad, the account now had $300,000 in it.
"It’s four years of life for the hospital!" he told me. "And it's all thanks to you! Who knew I was getting an angel, you looked so much like a monkey!"
"That must be why you liked me!"
By the early afternoon we were in the air again, going to his homeland. This time we flew over a
flock of pink flamingos and I screamed into the mouthpiece. Africa had these surprises and I knew that was why it had fascinated people for so long.
We were approaching Mount Elgon and Chris flew over it for a moment, though it was on the exact border and we might be violating Kenyan airspace. The mount is actually an extinct volcano and he showed me how the inside had collapsed, forming a depression. I saw dramatic caves and waterfalls, but he told me that we would unfortunately not have time to trek there.
We landed on another dusty strip a few minutes away and there was a handsome black man waiting for us. I knew it was Chris’ adopted brother, Ben. He was about thirty years old and had stayed to run the estate with their mother.
Before we left the plane Chris told me, “There is something I have to warn you about…”
I almost gasped. “What?”
“People call me Kit here,” he said.
I started laughing very hard as he shook his head. “Don’t make me sorry to have brought you!”
When we reached Ben, he hugged his brother. “Kit!” he said and I snorted a little as Chris narrowed his eyes at me.
Ben gave me a quick but warm embrace as well. He obviously knew about his brother needing to drive, since he went to the back seat and left the front to me.
We drove through yet another landscape in Africa, neither the wet green forest not the dry, yellow savannah but something in between. At first there was wild flora, with the mountain way in the back. The roads were either asphalt or beaten dirt, so they didn't raise much dust. As we meandered up, I saw rows and rows of crops.
Coffee.
"Is this already your land?" I asked. I wondered if he was truly rich.
"Well, Ben's and my mother's…" Chris replied.
"And his, whether he wants it or not," Ben said firmly.
The farm didn't seem to end, it just went up and down through rolling terrain, with more coffee planted on it. As a die-hard urban woman, I had actually never seen a coffee plantation, except in photos.
Chris and Ben were talking to each other in Masaba, which was the original name of Mount Elgon and the Bantu language spoken by the people on its slopes. I supposed that it was Chris' native language, together with English, though I was still confused by all the ethnic groups and languages of Uganda.