The Superman Project

by A. E. Roman

“Gupta took a day’s pay from me,” said the African. “I have three children.”

  “I would have taken two days’ pay from you, brother. I did not make your children. That’s none of my concern.”

  “You will not get away with this, Kenyangi.”

  “Are you threatening me, brother?”

  Kenyangi stood up and took what I recognized as a kicking stance. He was a good six feet, lanky and athletic. The other man backed off.

  “Go home, John,” Kenyangi said. “Next time, when I tell you to do something, you do it. I am good to you, and all you do is complain. If you want to keep your job, you’ll show me more respect. When Gupta is not here, you come in on time. You respect me.”

  “I didn’t mean to disrespect you,” said African John and bowed his head. “I thought we were friends.”

  “At work I have no friends.”

  “Yes, Kenyangi,” said deflated John.

  “And from now on,” said Kenyangi, “when we are at work, you will also call me sir, like everyone else. I’ve been too good to you, John.”

  “Yes, sir,” said John, and looked at his feet. “Sir.”

  “I am your boss,” Kenyangi said. “Now you know the truth. When we are at work I am your boss. Outside of work we can be friends. But not at work. Can I help you with anything else, John?”

  John shook his head.

  “Why are you still standing here, John?” said Kenyangi. “Go home, John.”

  “Yes, sir.” African John bowed and walked out into the street, going back home, wherever that was.

  “Don’t feel sorry for him,” Kenyangi said to me. “John and me, we came to America together. I am like father to his children. I’ve known him all my life. We grew up together in Kampala.”

  “He really is your friend?”

  “He’s my best friend,” Kenyangi said. “But he is a lazy, stupid cockroach.”

  “I’d like to talk to you,” I said. “About Giovanni.”

  He stood there squinting at me.

  “If you’re scared,” I said, “I understand.”

  “Kenyangi fears nothing and no one.”

  “So can we talk?” I handed him a hundred-dollar bill.

  Kenyangi smiled and pocketed the hundred bucks, grabbed his shoes and started walking down the street.

  “Follow me, shamus,” he said. “Follow me.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Kenyangi and I walked up a street, past a steady trickle of Asian Indians, to Edgar Gupta’s house. Kenyangi spoke of Uganda, of Kampala, Lake Victoria, tea bushes, coffee plants, berries, cane fields, white butterflies, hippos, crocodiles, the Nile, and witches. One minute Kenyangi was a student in Uganda; then he was a scientist, then a hunter, a bartender, teacher, tutor, poet, school guard, newspaper salesman, shoe salesman, waiter, messenger, social worker, and finally a journalist. Kenyangi, according to Kenyangi, had more jobs than a Korean on Red Bull; he had played more parts than Bette Davis in a good year, fought off lions and tigers and cannibals with his bare hands, saw killings, fought in three wars, fought off curfew police with machine guns armed only with a homemade spear. As a child, he spat in the eye of Idi Amin and lived to tell about it.

  “Here,” Kenyangi said, “I am a stock and errand boy. In Uganda, I am a prince.”

  “A prince?”

  “I come here because I believe in democracy,” said Kenyangi. “My family and I had a row. In Uganda, I have a palace at the foot of green volcanoes. I am a writer, a scholar, and a painter. Also an elephant killer. I shot many elephants in Africa. We would hunt. Do you know Hemingway? I met him. My great-uncle is the man he calls Juma in ‘An African Story.’ ”

  “Sounds like you’re the one telling the African story.” I smiled.

  Kenyangi laughed so loud that a couple of people crossed the street, a car stopped, and a squirrel fell from a tree.

  “Jesus,” I said. “You always laugh like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “You know, like a hyena with a bullhorn.”

  “Like a hyena with a bullhorn!” Kenyangi said, laughing even louder.

  “Keep it down,” I said. “There are astronauts sleeping near the moon.”

  “Welcome to Hotel Gupta!” said Kenyangi, pointing. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The grand house of William Gupta was a bright white marble behemoth construction with two tall Greek-style columns out front, white marble window frames, a white marble porch, a white marble domed roof, surrounded by an enormous dead garden. The size and grandeur of the house was almost an insult to the tiny two-family aluminum-sided structures that dominated the block, a gob of spit in the eye of lousy urban planning.

  “Truth,” said Kenyangi. “That is why I am glad to help you. For truth.”

  “You wanna give me back the hundred?”

  “Maybe not.” Kenyangi laughed. “But Edgar Gupta is a good man. You will see that. He is not the man you want. Father Ravi is the man you seek.”

  “Does Edgar Gupta pay you much to be a manager?”

  “Not just a manager,” said Kenyangi. “He gives me many side jobs.”

  “What kind of side jobs?”

  Kenyangi’s eyes went cold. “Who are you investigating?” said Kenyangi. “TSP or me, brother?”

  “Just trying to get to know the man who’s helping me.”

  “It is better for you to concentrate on Father Ravi. He is the elephant. Not me. Okay, brother?”

  Kenyangi slapped me on the back and grinned wide.

  “Let the hunt continue,” he said as we crossed the street toward the house.

  “Where are we going?” I said, following him.

  “Paradise,” said Kenyangi. “Paradise. Where you will tell me of your adventures as a private investigator and I shall tell you of my life with Gupta.”

  Inside, Gupta’s house was an unfinished shell of tile, wood, and marble, filled with saws, hammers, ladders, cement, marble dust, music, yelling, and happy noises. Africans overflowed a large unfinished living room, shouting, laughing, eating, sitting on milk crates and windowsills and rickety chairs and old car seats. One tall, dark, skinny man played bongos, his back pressed up against a half-painted blue wall. There was no furniture, but someone had set a wooden plank across a rusted bathtub in the corner of the room to use as a table for the beer, wine, meat, fish, yams, and salads.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Party,” said Kenyangi. “For Mr. Gupta’s employees.”

  “How many stores does he own?”

  “Three.”

  An effeminate man in a pink T-shirt and green pants pointed at me, marched over, and said, “Gupta!”

  Everyone in the room turned and stared at me.

  “No! He is not Gupta!” said Kenyangi, putting his arm on my shoulder. “Back, cockroach!”

  “You are Gupta!”

  “No,” I said. “I am Chico.”

  The exasperated man put a hand on his hip and called a friend over to inspect me. The friend, dressed in a suit and mirrored sunglasses, looked at me, nodded, and agreed, “Gupta! Yes!”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not Gupta. I’m Chico from the Bronx.”

  “He is lying!”

  “He is Gupta!”

  “Muhindi!”

  “No,” said Kenyangi. “He is no Muhindi! He is not Gupta! He is my friend! He is Porto Reecan! Bronx! He is Chico!”

  “Ahhh!” A wave of recognition and an explosion of laughter went around the room.

  “Welcome,” said a thick, pretty woman in a bright green wrap. She handed me a bottle of soda. “Bienvenue!”

  Kenyangi showed me around the house. There were rented rooms on the second floor, all locked. We went to Kenyangi’s rented room. It was small, hot, damp, and cell-like, with one tall window and a cot.

  “This is where you sleep?” I said.

  “This is home,” Kenyangi said. “Intellectuals do not need a lot of room.”

  “What about oxygen and sunlight?”

  “Over
rated.”

  “Where does Edgar Gupta sleep?”

  “In the basement.”

  “Edgar Gupta owns three stores, drives a Mercedes, and lives in a basement?”

  “It is a beautiful basement,” said Kenyangi. “I saw it once. He has a pool table, a stereo, and a big television. He drinks and smokes alone. No one is allowed down there. No one bothers him down there. They never see him. I collect the rents. They hardly know what he looks like.”

  I heard a buzzer go off. Kenyangi said, “That’s Solange.”

  “Solange,” I said. I must have said her name with too much feeling, because Kenyangi said, “Beware of Solange. She thinks too much for a woman and takes the fun out of everything. And these African girls, they will take advantage. They want a baby. They want a green card. They want money.”

  “I don’t have any money,” I said.

  “You are an American,” said Kenyangi. “You have more than you know.”

  Kenyangi grabbed a drum and we went back downstairs and saw Solange. She was carrying a guitar case. Kenyangi kissed her on both cheeks, and she kissed him back. She kissed me, too, like she had just met me. We went silently into the living room and moved to the bathtub table. Solange set down a bottle of cheap red wine with her long, thin African fingers.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered.

  She shook her head and said, “Do you like music?”

  “I love music,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

  Solange ignored my request and removed her guitar from its black case and stood with Kenyangi and two others with drums before the bathtub. Kenyangi ordered everyone to be quiet, sit, and gather round her. I sat on a rickety chair and waited for my chance to question Solange after I got through with Kenyangi.

  I felt Solange’s music wrap around me. Everyone listened without talking while three men danced, heads and arms flailing, and as for me, I couldn’t see anyone but Solange. I found myself gripping the arms of my chair as she played her guitar and sang. Solange was playing and singing and I was over on my seat, eyes closed, wanting more. I never wanted her to stop singing. I never wanted to go back to Parkchester. I wanted to forget about Zena and her husband Hari Lachan. I wanted to be left alone here; to sit still and listen to Solange. I wanted to sink and rise on the notes of Solange’s music, among the Africans, pushing away the almost unbearable new life I was leading before Solange kissed me with her playing and singing. As the singing went on, I wanted never to be haunted by the impulse to be off somewhere else trying to solve a missing persons case or a murder. I felt happy. And several times I tried to rise from my seat to applaud or dance, in my way, but I couldn’t. Too many sleepless nights maybe or maybe just too much murder and lies and confusion for one week, and my body, like my soul and my feet, was too tired and had had enough.

  Solange played and sang and the drums beat as three African men danced, flailed their heads, jumped, twirled, forward and back, left, right, until midnight; Solange, sweaty and exhausted but singing, which finally worked on me like a sweet lullaby.

  Later, when I awoke, I was in one of those rented rooms in Edgar Gupta’s house.

  There was just enough room on the windowsill for Solange’s books. Solange sat on the floor, reading, as the night traffic dribbled by, and said, “Parlez-vous français?”

  “Oui,” I said.

  Solange launched into a tirade of perfect French.

  “Whoa,” I said. “I speak a little college French, and I speak it so badly I’m not even allowed to visit France.”

  Solange frowned and a piece of plaster fell loose from the ceiling.

  “We pay too much in this crumbling house,” she said, picking up the plaster.

  “You live here, too?”

  “I exist here. I survive here. I wait here. I am here.”

  “You do a lot here,” I said. “So you’re also from Uganda?”

  “No,” she said, “I am from Rwanda.”

  I don’t keep up much with current events, but I knew that, some years ago, in Rwanda over eight hundred thousand people had been killed in a couple of months, mostly a group called Tutsis, killed by other Africans, a group called Hutus, all approved and instigated and financed by the Hutu government of Rwanda. Nothing so evil had happened since Hitler tried to exterminate the Jews, that’s what Ramona and the papers had been saying. It was hard to avoid, even for me.

  “Are you Tutsi or Hutu?” I said.

  “Both,” she said. “My father was Hutu. My mother was Tutsi. I am a country divided.”

  I didn’t ask her about her mother or father or her family. I couldn’t.

  “I guess you’re never going back to Rwanda,” I said.

  Solange nodded her head. “I must go back. Home is home. Have you read Chinua Achebe?”

  “No.”

  “Do you like reading?”

  I shrugged. “My ex-wife is a writer and a librarian.”

  She walked over and touched my face. “What are you exactly?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You are white? You are black? What are you?”

  “Cockerdoodle,” I said. “Half cocker spaniel. Half poodle.”

  “You are black or white?” she said, annoyed. “You are Muzungu?”

  “No,” I said. “I am Mofongo.”

  “What is Mofongo?”

  “It’s a dish made with plaintains,” I said. “And just as delicious as I am. My turn. How long have you known Kenyangi?”

  “Kenyangi is a distant cousin.”

  “Are you a princess?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Kenyangi told me that he was a prince.”

  Solange laughed. “Kenyangi’s family worked in the fields in Uganda. Their job was to set fire to the bush to help the crops grow. Kenyangi tells lies, but they are interesting lies. But don’t believe anything he tells you.”

  “What about you?”

  “I am just an innocent girl from the bush,” she said. “You have nothing to fear from Solange.”

  “What’s your relationship to Edgar Gupta?”

  “I bathe him.”

  “Is that slang for ‘I sucker him for cash’?”

  “No,” she said. “He has trouble washing. I work in the store. I cook his food. I spy on him for Joey. I wash him.”

  I tried my best to look unaffected.

  “Let me tell you how this is gonna go,” I said. “It seems I’m not gonna get anything from Kenyangi except praise for Edgar Gupta and it’s obvious to me from your behavior at the store that you don’t want Edgar Gupta knowing that we’ve met. So you start singing or I tell Gupta that we’re part of a ring that’s been shoplifting Vitamin Water from his store.”

  Solange’s face went darker. “I thought you were Joey’s friend?”

  “What’s your relationship to Joey?” I asked, ignoring her question.

  “We are friends,” she said. “Gabby Gupta helped me get this job years ago when I came to America when Edgar Gupta was still her beloved uncle. I work in the store. I cook his food. I wash him.”

  “Rewind the tape for me,” I said. “Take me back.”

  “There was a time when,” said Solange, “The Superman Project was in debt and all but dead. Father Ravi accepted one hundred thousand dollars from his brother Edgar to save the project, and signed a silly contract on the back of a napkin that gave Edgar ownership of all TSP assets, including those accrued in the future, so long as the Project lived. It not only lived but thrived. Then one day Edgar Gupta called, after a couple of years of not speaking to his brother.”

  “He wanted the hundred thousand.”

  “No,” said Solange. “He wanted everything. The farm. The TSP mansion. Everything. He had that contract on a paper napkin.”

  “Maybe Edgar Gupta had something to do with his niece Gabby Gupta disappearing. Maybe he did it or he hired someone to do it. Giovanni. Kenyangi.”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Edgar Gupta
hates his brother,” I said, daring her with a stern look to deny it.

  “Edgar Gupta hates his brother,” she conceded. “Father Ravi convinced Edgar Gupta’s only child Arjuna to enlist in the military in 2001. He told Arjuna that it was his duty as a Superman. The boy was killed. He was twenty. After that, Father Ravi and his brother never spoke again.”

  “That’s not all of it,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “Edgar Gupta, like his brother, was married to a much younger woman, a beautiful desi girl named Anu. Father Ravi had his brother agree that they would take part in an experiment.”

  “Experiment?”

  “An experiment, swapping their wives,” said Solange. “Edgar got nowhere with Ravi’s wife. She was one of the so-called sex-haters Ravi preached against in those days before he developed The Superman philosophy. But Ravi and Anu spent many hours together. Father Ravi was old but still impulsive, self-indulgent, vain, naïve, and sexually frustrated with his young wife. He told his brother Edgar everything. And it was Ravi’s idea, but Edgar did go along with it. In the end, after his son Arjuna was killed in the Iraq war to topple Saddam Hussein and save the United States from nuclear obliteration with weapons that did not exist, Anu left Edgar Gupta. Edgar blamed Father Ravi. Edgar and Ravi stopped speaking. But, a year ago, Edgar contacted Father Ravi again: with a lawsuit claiming ownership of all TSP funds and property. The case was dismissed out of court six weeks ago. Not long after that Gabby Gupta disappeared. But Edgar Gupta’s dropped the lawsuit.”

  “Why?”

  “Giovanni,” she said. “Giovanni found out from someone on the inside that TSP is bankrupt.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “TSP has more bills than income.”

  Solange added that Edgar Gupta and Father Ravi Gupta had been very close. They were brothers and best friends. They had a plan. They were going to become millionaires in America. In India and then Uganda and then Britain, the lines were clear, and it seemed as though nothing could separate the brothers then.

  Solange said she didn’t know if a man could be a muse. But if a man could be, Edgar Gupta was Ravi’s muse. Edgar was the cheerleader, saying, “You can do it, Ravi. You’re just as good as any of them. Start your Superman Project. I’ll loan you the money.”