Where the Air is Sweet

by Tasneem Jamal

  “Obote, all of us, we were caught up in the politics,” he says.

  Mumtaz has always liked listening to George speak English. His t’s are sharp, his r’s rolled, as though he is still speaking Swahili or Runyankole.

  “The military served us,” George says. “They were an afterthought. Remember, Mumtaz, when I told you UPC joining with Kabaka Yeka was foolish? It was worse than foolish. It planted the seeds of Obote’s downfall.”

  “How?” she asks.

  “After Obote used Amin to take out the kabaka, the army had too much power over him. Amin was one of only two African officers at independence. The British like to promote big, strong men who smile when they bow. But Amin isn’t submissive. He is a magnet for all the rage and humiliation that has been building in this land for hundreds of years. And maybe even before that. He is the embodiment of it. He is the body.”

  No one speaks.

  “George,” says Jaafar finally, “why are you here? Why did you come back?”

  “About three months ago I did some interviews with a Tanzanian newspaper. I said whatever I thought. I expressed my anger that this bloody kakwa, this man who probably was born across the border in Sudan or Zaire like so many of his tribe, has stolen Uganda. My people have lived in the Kingdom of Ankole for centuries. This beast comes and tells the world in his terrible English what Uganda is? He has no clue what it is.” He stops. He is breathing heavily, like he has been running and has finally stopped. “The army began to harass my parents. I have come to get them out and take them to Bukoba. My wife has a cousin there. That’s where we’ve been, that’s where she and the children are staying.”

  “It’s dangerous for you,” Raju says. “Someone else could have helped get your parents out.”

  “I have cash hidden. We’re penniless. I need it.”

  “You couldn’t ask a friend to retrieve it for you?” Jaafar asks. “How stupid to risk coming to Kampala. Your parents live southwest of Mbarara. Why come here?”

  George laughs. “When I was in Mbarara, I heard you were here, Bana. I wanted to see you, to say goodbye to you properly. And to say goodbye to my house, to my home, to Uganda.”

  “Why are you talking nonsense?” Jaafar asks. His tone, unlike his words, is gentle.

  “This is my country,” George says, his voice almost a whisper. “No one can keep me out.”

  Mumtaz hears a sound from behind the sofa. She stands up and quickly walks over. Shama is crouched on the floor, like a cat. She grabs her by the elbow and lifts her to her feet. Shama keeps her eyes lowered. Mumtaz looks at the faces of the men staring at them: Jaafar and George closest to her on the sofa; Raju and Amir across from them on chairs. They are unmoving. Like statues. Like figures in a photograph. She leads Shama back to her bed.

  She stays in her bedroom until she is confident Shama is asleep, until she hears her breathing become deep and regular. And then she leans down and takes the child’s limp head into her hands. “What have you heard?” she whispers, her eyes on Shama’s forehead. “What is in there? How can I take it out of you?”

  Two weeks later, Jaafar tells Mumtaz he received a phone call from George’s father. George’s empty car was found ten days ago, the windows smashed, the upholstery ripped out. No one has seen him since.

  31

  ONE AFTERNOON, RAJU AND KARIM VISIT AN airstrip. The boy has become fixated on airplanes. For weeks, he has begged to go to the airport with Jaafar so he can watch planes take off and land. But Jaafar is too busy travelling, working. Raju agreed to take the boy to the small airstrip on Kololo Hill. Airplanes are the only things, it seems, that excite Karim these days.

  Within minutes of arriving, Karim tells his grandfather he has to pee. Raju walks with him for about five minutes, until he reaches a small cluster of trees. While he waits he lights a cigarette and walks a few steps. He glances down. To his right, in the grass, lies a body. He looks at it quickly. It is a man. A black African. His eyes are open. His limbs are bent and stiff.

  Flies buzz around him. Raju walks quickly towards Karim, who has zipped up his trousers and is approaching his grandfather. He leads the boy away from the corpse, back to the airstrip. He does not speak of what he has seen. He does not consider reporting it to the police. After an hour, he has convinced himself he did not see it.

  A few days later, Amir tells Raju that he was driving in the suburb of Naguru, on Jinja Road, and stopped to buy some coffee beans from a vendor. He wanted to negotiate a cheaper price. The vendor was holding to his fee. Amir pulled over and turned off the engine so he could negotiate. He was in front of the headquarters of the Public Safety Unit, the site of executions, of torture. “I could hear screaming. It was dark, though not too late. But I heard it. Those buildings are low and have thin walls. I could hear the screams.”

  Amir has begun to talk often of the horrors happening in Kampala. A glass of alcohol always accompanies a macabre story. A habit by association, like smoking a cigarette while driving.

  People disappear so frequently that the Uganda Argus begins to advertise body-finders, whose fees increase depending on the importance of the missing person. Amir is pointing at an ad, showing it to Raju. “I wonder if we should pay to find George. It would cost a minimum of 25,000 shillings for a man of his former position in government.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Jaafar says quietly. He is sitting across from Amir and Raju on the sofa.

  Amir continues to speak as though he has not heard Jaafar. Bodies have begun to pile up above the Owen Falls Dam in Jinja. He advises Jaafar not to take the children there. “It’s a dumping point. Crocodiles are a cheap way to dispose of bodies. But even they can only consume so much.” He takes a sip of his drink.

  “I never take the children there,” Jaafar says. “Why would you tell me this?”

  “There is also a dumping point near Murchison Falls.”

  “Stop.” Jaafar presses his palms together as though he is begging, as though he is praying. “Please stop.” He lets his hands drop and turns to the side, so that he is not looking at Amir. “Sometimes, I think this lunacy is all good fun to you.”

  “I’m trying to help,” Amir says. “You’re the father, the one with two small children here. In this lunacy.”

  “We’ve become what Idi Amin and his faithful said we were,” Jaafar says. “This was my country. My country. I didn’t give a damn about any other place on earth.”

  Raju stares across the table at his son. He is having dinner with Jaafar and Amir at the Phoenix restaurant. Jaafar looks tired. When he speaks, his voice sounds laboured.

  “I didn’t love Uganda or hate it. I don’t love or hate the air I breathe. But I need it. I would die without it.”

  “You would not die without Uganda,” Raju says quietly. “You only think you would because you have known nothing else.”

  Jaafar continues as though he has not heard Raju. “We have become what they said we were then, when we weren’t these things: people with no ties to this land, who exploit it for our own gain. And the idiot is too stupid to realize what he’s created.”

  Amir lifts up his glass of whiskey. Then he leans forward and says in a lowered voice: “May Amin Dada go straight to hell.”

  “He doesn’t need to go to hell,” Jaafar says. “He has opened its gates and ushered its creatures into Uganda.”

  Amir begins to laugh. He laughs so loudly people stare.

  A hush falls. Amir’s laughter echoes in the silence for a few moments. And then it stops. Raju looks around. Everyone is staring at the entrance of the restaurant. He turns in his chair and looks at the door. Three armed, uniformed soldiers are standing there, their eyes scanning the room. Raju and his sons are the only Asians in the restaurant.

  “Jaafar, Amir,” one of them calls out. The voice is firm, commanding. It reminds Raju of his own voice when his sons were boys, when they misbehaved. In the same moment, Jaafar and Amir stand up. One of the soldiers walks towards them.

  “Come wi
th us,” he says.

  Raju stands up. Jaafar looks at him and shakes his head.

  “I am their father,” Raju says, ignoring Jaafar. “I will go with them.”

  The soldier stares at Raju for a moment. Then he thrusts his chin forward, gesturing for him to follow his sons.

  Once in front of the restaurant, Raju sees two army Jeeps and a black saloon car. He is shaken; he is shaking. He cannot make out the model of the car. The three of them are instructed to get in the back seat. An officer climbs into the passenger seat in front. A young soldier is driving the car. The Jeeps are behind them. They sit in silence. Raju is staring out the window. He begins to feel hot. He begins to feel that he cannot move, that there are chains wrapped tightly around him.

  “Where are you taking us?” Amir asks.

  “Simba Battalion.”

  “Why? Who wants to see us?”

  “My job is to take you to the barracks, to solitary confinement.”

  “What have we done?” Amir asks.

  The officer turns around and shrugs. His eyes are on Jaafar. “It is bad: a three-by-six-foot cell. One foot of water. No windows. No light. No toilet. You cannot sleep. You die in your own filth.” He is speaking softly, a hint of pride in his voice. He could be describing a new car, a beloved daughter. His eyes have not left Jaafar.

  Raju becomes overwhelmed by the need to urinate. He tells Amir in Gujarati.

  “Can we stop? Please,” Amir says. “My father needs to piss.”

  The officer tells the driver to pull over. They are about 40 miles out of Kampala, heading southwest towards Mbarara. Raju relieves himself in the grass beside the road. And then he leans into a bush and throws up.

  He climbs into the back seat beside Amir, the taste of vomit on his tongue, his throat raw. Raju has driven this route, from Kampala to Mbarara, hundreds of times. He knows exactly when they will pass marsh, exactly when the road will swerve, exactly when they will see the signs marking the equator, exactly when they will reach the barracks at the east end of Mbarara. The driver starts the car. Raju closes his eyes and feels the car turning. He opens them. They are driving back, the way they came, towards Kampala. He looks at Amir, but he is staring straight ahead. Jaafar is looking out the window.

  When they are at the Phoenix again, Jaafar explains to Raju that he made a deal. “Lieutenant-Colonel Abdu Saleel told me they are after only me. For 60,000 shillings he agreed to bring us back here. But as part of the deal I have to get out of Uganda immediately.”

  “What?”

  “It will only be for a week or two, Bapa. They want money. That’s all. It’s nothing to worry about. But don’t tell Mumtaz about this.”

  “Did you anger some soldiers?” Amir asks.

  Jaafar shakes his head. “I don’t know who could be behind this.”

  “We can’t worry about it now. First we need to arrange to get you to Nairobi.”

  Raju looks at Amir, then at Jaafar. “What is this? You are discussing this as if it’s a flat tire.”

  Jaafar smiles. “It’s fine, Bapa. Everything will be okay.” Jaafar runs his hand over his face. When his hand falls to his side, Raju sees that it is trembling.

  At home that night, Jaafar tells Raju that he has contacted Eliab. He owns a warehouse. It is empty. Jaafar will meet him there and Eliab will help him get out of the country safely.

  The next morning, when Raju walks into the kitchen, Mumtaz is frying an egg. “Jaafar had to fly early to Nairobi, Bapa. Sit, I’ll get you breakfast.”

  It is two weeks later. Raju is standing in his flat, smoking a cigarette. It is late. Mumtaz and the children are asleep. Jaafar has just returned from Nairobi. He is sitting at the dining table with Amir.

  “I couldn’t make money. I couldn’t make any new business contacts in Nairobi. After all these days of doing nothing, I couldn’t take it anymore. It was impossible to get anything started. I felt like I was dead.”

  “You may be dead yet,” Amir says.

  “I think Abdu will be content with the money we gave him.”

  “Kadach—Maybe.”

  Two days later, Jaafar tells Raju and Amir that Abdu showed up at six in the morning, threatening to drive him to Mbarara immediately. Jaafar paid him another 60,000 shillings.

  “I’ll drive to Nairobi this time,” Jaafar says. “Maybe we can work in the two cities. You can travel back and forth. I’ll deal with the contacts on that end; you deal with the contacts on this end.” He looks at Amir. “Or, I could grow a big, ugly mustache, cut my hair and become fat. Then I could pretend to be you and stay here.”

  “You are thin because you smoke seventy cigarettes a day. It isn’t something to be proud of.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You know I smoke only fifty.”

  Amir and Jaafar laugh. Raju looks at his hands.

  A week later, Jaafar returns from Nairobi. He walks into Raju’s flat and sits down on the sofa next to his father. “When I got back to Kampala, I went straight to the Speke Hotel and had a glass of whiskey at the bar, smiling at everyone. Two State Research Bureau men sat down. I didn’t want any trouble from them. I knew if I walked away too quickly it would look suspicious and they would follow me. So I was friendly. But uninteresting. I told them the Renault has been giving me trouble; I talked to them about its sticky gearshift, its faulty brake, about the crack in the rear window. Finally, they became so bored, they left.”

  “Are you drunk?” Raju asks. “Why have you come back again? It is too soon.”

  “I’m ready for Abdu,” Jaafar says.

  The next morning, shortly after dawn, Raju is sitting on a chair near an open window, smoking. He is watching Jaafar standing on the verandah of his flat. He has been standing there for close to a half hour. He has bathed and is shaven and dressed. When Abdu arrives, Raju puts out his cigarette and stands up. He does not know what will happen. He does not know what he will do if something happens.

  “I’m not paying you,” Jaafar says.

  Abdu begins to laugh.

  “If you want to kill me, then kill me. I will not leave Uganda.”

  Abdu stops laughing. Raju feels blood thudding in his ears.

  “I am a Ugandan. This is my country. I will not pay you to stay here and I will not leave.”

  Raju hears Abdu smack his lips. Then he hears him laugh. “I have no interest in killing you. This is not my problem. Do what you wish.” He gets into his Jeep and drives away.

  32

  JAAFAR BEGINS TO INVITE ELIAB HOME FOR DINNER every night. Amir sits with them and they talk. Mumtaz stays in the kitchen most of the time. The children scamper about the flat until it is time for them to go to sleep. The conversations have become laments, for a lost time, for lost lives, for lost livelihoods. It has become a way to pass the time. And Raju has grown tired of it.

  “Are you planning to work as a doctor again?” he asks Amir one evening.

  “Where do you think I should administer my medicine?” Amir is slumped on the sofa. “At Mulago Hospital, where doctors live in fear for their lives because they actually know how people are killed and have to lie about it? Or in private practice? How should I advertise my services? Should I offer a discount for those willing to risk their lives by coming to be treated by the universally detested Asian?”

  “You will never practise medicine again?”

  “Who knows what life will bring. Did we expect this?”

  Raju reaches for his teacup and takes a sip.

  “I feel something inside me I didn’t use to feel,” Amir says. “I feel a rage inside me. I have no business helping people who most of the time I cannot even look at.”

  “You can’t blame all Africans—”

  “You saw them,” Amir says, interrupting Jaafar. “Taunting us in lineups at embassies, cheering when cars drove to the airport.”

  “Some teenagers taunted. Soldiers cheered. People who knew it was wrong could say nothing. They would risk their lives. You know that.”

&
nbsp; “But, you see, I don’t care. I like this feeling.”

  “Rage.”

  “Rage.”

  Raju looks at Eliab. He is playing with his fingernails. The men have been speaking in Gujarati.

  “Is that why you’ve taken to drinking whiskey?” Raju asks. “It fuels the good feeling?”

  Amir laughs. Amir, who refused to touch alcohol his entire life, now drinks whatever spirits he can get his hands on. He drinks so much that his eyes are continually bloodshot. When he is in Kampala, he rarely sleeps at the flat he shares with Raju. He wanders into the house at dawn, smiling like a madman, looking disheveled. Once, he brought a woman with him. Raju saw her when he stepped into the hallway, her long brown fingers, painted with blood-red polish, pressed over her mouth.

  “They are calling themselves Black Patels. Did you know that?” Amir says in Swahili, interrupting Raju’s thoughts. He is sitting two feet away, but Raju can smell the whiskey on his breath. “The new businessmen. The new proprietors of Asian businesses. The thieves.” He is looking at Eliab.

  “They are not thieves,” Jaafar says.

  “The beneficiaries of the theft then? Shall we call them that?”

  Jaafar pats Eliab on the back. “We don’t mean you,” he says. “You are a businessman. Markets opened up and you took advantage. Any good businessman would have done the same. You weren’t handed anything. Idi Amin’s army, his tribesmen got our businesses, our houses. Not you.”

  Eliab smiles. Raju sees him look across the room towards the kitchen, towards Mumtaz. Their eyes meet and then Eliab looks away.

  “They have a mantra,” Amir says. “‘The economic war is on and the war is winning.’ Can these people be so stupid? And I don’t mean you, Eliab,” he says, turning towards him, his hand held out dramatically. “The economy is in ruins. Sugar, flour and salt are luxuries. They think they are winning something?”

  “Maybe it’s misguided, but they feel pride. I can understand that.” Mumtaz has walked into the sitting room. She sits down on the arm of the sofa. A haze of smoke from Jaafar’s cigarette rises up in front of her. Raju watches it move up towards the ceiling and disappear.