by Giles Foden
Everything was to be given over: the Sikh mechanics’ garages where they’d grind a new set of valves for you; the grocers where you’d get English tinned meat; the fabric shops with their bolts of coloured cloth stacked up to the ceiling. Mr Vassanji, the solicitor. The thin-faced GP in town, Doctor Ghose, whose qualifications Merrit used to say were dubious (but who did quite a good job, so far as I could tell). It was all to be ‘allocated’, as the euphemism had it.
When the deadline came, the Asians piled up their belongings in boxes near the bus park ready to go. But the soldiers took most of it, especially watches and cameras, and most of the Asians left for the airport penniless. The worst thing was seeing the Sikhs have their turbans knocked off, and their beards cut with bayonets. I stood by, I know that now – there was nothing I could do, I thought. Not all of the Asians made the deadline, which only increased the brutality, and it was some time before all of those in Mbarara had actually left.
It was during this period that Popitlal, Dr Ghose’s assistant, turned up at the clinic. He had cropped his hair and put boot polish on his face. He wanted us to take him in as an orderly, and go along with the pretence that he was an African. And he was, in so far as these things mean anything: his family had been in Africa for nearly a century. We gave him a cup of tea – he was trembling with fear – while we discussed what to do. He was now a stateless person.
‘If he stays, we’ll get into hot water ourselves,’ Merrit said.
‘We can’t just turn him in,’ I said.
Billy Ssegu was the only one of the Ugandans who wasn’t laughing at the boot polish. The Asians weren’t too popular, because of the money. They were close enough to be envied by the poor in a way that the muzungu weren’t. Or so I thought back then.
‘I know,’ Billy said, ‘we’ll put him into Rwanda. My brother is an immigration official at the border. He’ll let him through. We can take him up in the Land Rover.’
‘Be quick, then,’ Merrit said crossly. ‘I don’t want soldiers turning up here.’
So he took him. I often wonder what happened to Popitlal, what sort of life he made for himself.
As for the others, Major Mabuse simply gave a lot of their businesses to his fellow officers. One restaurant was renamed ‘The Exodus’. With khaki behind the counter, the prices went haywire. A lot of the shops closed, because the import lines of credit from Bombay and elsewhere dried up overnight. Salt, matches, sugar, soap: even the most basic things became hard to get. The army slaughtered a whole herd of milking cows for beef, which meant we had no milk either. And we soon had to abandon our vaccination safaris, being unable to get spare parts for the Land Rover.
Sara wouldn’t say much about it all, simply, ‘It’s Amin, what do you expect?’ and a shrug. At that stage, we weren’t sleeping together at all. You’re a failure, I told myself.
And then, one day, she didn’t turn up at the clinic. When I went down to her bungalow at lunch-time, the door was unlocked. I went inside. Many of her things were gone. Open cupboards and drawers showed signs of hurried packing. I walked slowly back up the hill, feeling wretched and dismal and wondering what I was going to say to Merrit.
It was the beginning of October, and I remember sitting that night listening to the radio while I fretted about her. At their conference in Blackpool, the Conservatives had just defeated Enoch Powell’s motion condemning the government for allowing the expelled Ugandan Asians into the country.
Given the Asian scenario, I should have known, following Amin’s announcement about Zionist imperialists and their ‘secret army, six-hundred-strong’, that Sara would go too. But I wasn’t prepared for it. He seemed to me to be mainly attacking a sect of black Ugandan Jews called the Malakites, perhaps the ones Waziri had mentioned, as much as Israel herself. Once I had pieced it all together, I felt foolish, deficient in an almost physical way – it had all been there before my very eyes. I should have known, that is the phrase of my life, its summing up, its consummate acknowledgement.
She still could have said goodbye, though. I suppose she was afraid I would try to stop her. Nestor, it transpired, had actually seen her go. ‘The men from the road gang, bwana. They came to take her in a jeep at sunrise. The people say all the tractors, they went over the mountain to Rwanda. Amin says all Israeli personnel to leave within three days.’
So I could only imagine her going. Perhaps it was less painful that way. Standing watching the yellow graders go into the sun. The graders and the jeeps and the wide-mouthed bulldozers.
14
Oddly, once Sara had gone, the problem with my ears came back. It must have been an infection after all, and I began a course of antibiotics again. It was also about this time that the stories about Amin began to fascinate me. And when, with my gummy ears, I heard him calling himself the last rightful King of Scotland again on the radio, I thought, in a wild moment, that it had some special relevance for me. As if I were his subject.
Meeting him in person for the first time, when the soldiers came to call for me at the bungalow, and I had to go and bind his sprained wrist – that was a bizarre experience. The cow he had hit lay bleeding on one side of the road, its gasps loud amid the murmurs of the soldiers and the birdsong of the bush. Nearby, nose-deep in vegetation, was the red Maserati. On the other side, no less impressive a spectacle, sprawled Idi Amin Dada. Even on his back he was physically dominating. I felt as if I were encountering a being out of Greek myth – except, I must confess, for his smell, which was a rancid mixture of beer and sweat.
He held his hand in the air, muttering Swahili curses as I wound the fabric round. Then I began checking him for concussion, fractures, signs of internal bleeding. I was in professional mode, but I couldn’t help feeling awed by the sheer size of him and the way, even in those unelevated circumstances, he radiated a barely restrained energy. As my hands moved over his body, undoing the buttons of his camouflage battledress, and touching his chest and abdomen, I felt – far from being the healer – that some kind of elemental force was seeping into me.
Suddenly, he shouted something, his voice loud in my ear. But it wasn’t directed at me, being simply an instruction to the soldiers. They began pushing the Maserati back on to the road. The bonnet was deeply dented, but the engine started when one of the soldiers tried it.
I returned to my checks, trying to concentrate. I was gentle with him, worried that his incomprehensible grumbles – occasionally punctured by the English word ‘stupid’ – might explode into anger.
Once I had finished attending to him, however, he was charm itself. And Anglo-fluent once again; it was as if, in treating him, I had given him back the words.
‘My dear Doctor Garrigan,’ he said, grabbing hold of my shoulder with his good hand as he clambered up. ‘Thank you very much indeed. This calls for a celebration.’
He barked in Swahili at one of the soldiers. The man went over to the car. Idi – Amin, I should say – followed him slowly, and I followed Amin. Leaning into the boot, the soldier emerged with a bottle of Napoleon and a stack of steel tumblers. We watched as the man balanced two of the tumblers on the dented bonnet and filled them to the top with brandy. I noticed his hand was trembling as he poured – he was terrified.
‘You know,’ Amin said, taking one of the tumblers and handing it to me, ‘every president has a bar in his car. Cheers!’
He took a deep gulp. I sipped nervously, reduced to a state of hopeless perplexity. I was drinking with Idi Amin, on a dirt road on a burning hot day, standing next to a pranged sports car, with a dying cow a few feet away. I noticed that one of the beast’s horns had snapped off and was lying in the middle of the road, like a projectile fallen from the sky.
I realized that Amin was studying me closely. ‘This is excellent brandy,’ I blurted.
‘Well, you know what they say in Swahili,’ he boomed. ‘Mteuzi haishi tamaa. A connoisseur never comes to the end of desire.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I won’t drink too mu
ch.’
The sound of a shot made me jump. I looked round quickly. A soldier was climbing off the cow, a revolver in his hand.
Amin chuckled. ‘Do not be afraid, he is just putting it out of its misery.’
‘Poor thing,’ I said.
‘It is only meat … they can take it back to the barracks.’
He paused, and then assumed a pose of some formality. ‘Now, I would like to thank you for coming at such short notice. Public opinion maintains that a gentleman is judged by his actions – and on that front you are most definitely a gentleman.’
‘It was the least I could do,’ I said.
‘I would like you to have something as a token of my gratitude,’ he said. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a bundle of shilling notes and thrust them towards me. ‘Here.’
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ I said, taking a step back.
‘Ability is wealth, Doctor Garrigan. You should take advantage of your skills.’
‘I only bound your wrist,’ I said.
He frowned and turned away, staring into a tall clump of elephant grass by the side of the track. I wondered whether I had said something out of turn.
And then he spoke again. ‘Maybe you should come and work for me on a more permanent basis. Because, you know, he who tastes honey makes a hive – yes, he who dips his finger into honey does not want to dip it once only.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ I said. The brandy was making me feel dizzy.
‘I’d make it worth your while,’ he said. ‘You’ve obviously got a very good brain. Well, I have, too – but brains are like shoes. Everyone has his own kind. Yours is the one of the medical, mine of the military. It is like … a barber does not shave himself. If he does so, he will cut himself.’
‘That’s true enough,’ I said, ‘but I’m happy in my job here.’
‘As you wish,’ he said. ‘I will speak to my Minister of Health, in any case. Now I have to go and speak to the chiefs of this area. They are very backward, so I have to tell them everything twice. Some of them even wear wellingtons when presiding at trials.’
He straightened suddenly, almost coming to attention. ‘Well, goodbye, doctor – and my best thanks again.’
‘Goodbye,’ I said, going to shake his hand and then realizing it was the bandaged one.
He smiled and got into the vehicle, bending under the low rim of the door. ‘This car has a good engine. It can survive crashes.’
I saw the white of his bandaged hand resting on the steering wheel, and wondered whether he would be able to drive OK.
‘I will see you again,’ he said. ‘Of this I am sure.’
He looked up at me from the car, something unfathomable – half-fascinating, half-frightening – in his eyes as he spoke.
‘Doctor Garrigan, when you make your decision, remember this: water flows down into a valley, it does not climb a hill.’
‘I will,’ I mumbled, finding it hard to focus because of the brandy and the sunlight reflecting off the shiny red car. My pericranium glowed like a stove-hob.
Amin wound up the window and started the engine. After a couple of throaty revs, the Maserati pulled off and went some way down the track. Then it came to a sudden halt and reversed back towards me with a high-pitched whine.
Down came the glass. ‘And if water is spilt, it cannot be gathered up.’
Without a word of further explanation, he sped off again. Confused and slightly drunk, I stood there as the soldiers heaved the body of the cow into one of their jeeps and prepared to follow him. I watched them go off. Only as the last vehicle was obscured by a baobab did I realize that I had no way of getting back myself. It was quite a long walk home.
15
By the time Wasswa’s letter came, inviting me to become the President’s personal physician, everything in Mbarara simply reminded me of Sara. It couldn’t be borne. So I was happy to leave, although it was quite tricky with Merrit, who made out that I was letting him down.
A few days after I had replied to the letter, Wasswa phoned me up, saying he would send a driver the following week, and on the appointed day a car duly turned up. I said my goodbyes, such as they were, stowed my luggage in the boot, and began the journey into a new part of my life. Going in the opposite direction, we followed the same string of towns I had watched from the matatu: Sanga, where the Kenyan man had snubbed me, Lyantonde, Mbirizi …
A strange incident took place on the way, in a spot not far beyond Masaka (I had given the Tropic-o’-Paradise a miss this time). Barclay – the driver whom Wasswa had sent for me – suddenly pulled over, saying there was a tourist attraction that I ought to see. And so there was. Surrounded by bush, we got out and stood under the concrete rings painted with the words UGANDA EQUATOR in big letters.
Leaning there, with my arms up on one of the rings, I turned to look east and west and tried to work it all out – the thing about water going round one way down the plughole on one side of the line, the other way on the other. I looked towards Kampala, and wondered what my life there was going to be like.
‘It is possible to get a cold drink here,’ Barclay said, interrupting my reverie and pointing at a homestead on the left, some way away from the road.
‘OK,’ I said.
‘But we must be careful because a madman lives there.’
‘Oh.’
Intrigued, I followed him through a field of millet – thistles and African daisies, yellow and pale orange, poking up among the brown bushels – to the gate. The homestead was half-hidden in an encirclement of trees. Within stood an irregular palisade of thin sharpened logs, and through that I could make out the house, the mud-hut norm except that everything was thicker, with the same sense of fortification suggested by the fencing.
The gate was made out of three or four sheets of corrugated iron fastened on to a wooden trellis. Next to it a bell – very old – hung on a post. Barclay rang it.
‘People, people, I see you. Come inside my place,’ shouted a voice.
We opened the gate and went in. To the left, under the shade of a tree, sat a man with dreadlocks, wearing a suit jacket and shorts. The plaits poked out from under a deer-stalker hat. Next to him was a battered-looking cool-box.
‘Welcome, welcome,’ he said, leaping up. ‘This is Uganda equator refreshment centre. We can please you any way here.’
Barclay said something in Swahili and the man reached into the box and brought out two dusty bottles of Coke.
‘You will have to give him 100 shillings,’ Barclay said, turning to me.
‘It is very cold,’ said the Coke man, opening the bottles with his teeth and handing them to us. ‘But sometimes the machine is breaking.’
I swigged the sweet liquid a bit queasily. The man had bad teeth.
‘My name,’ he said, ‘is Angol-Steve.’
Barclay tutted, shaking his head with embarrassment.
‘I am the chief in these parts. No person comes from outside to tell me my business.’
He tugged at my sleeve.
‘No, of course not,’ I said, ‘we were just thirsty and …’
‘I am the top person,’ he interrupted, sitting down again and glaring at us. ‘Even when there is trouble in Kampala they do not touch me.’
‘He is a crazy fellow, sir,’ said Barclay. ‘Do not take any notice.’
‘I am perfectly sane and very clever also,’ said Angol-Steve. ‘For I see things from many angles. That is why I am called Angol-Steve.’
I burst out laughing in spite of myself. I’d thought it was some kind of tribal name.
‘Ahh, this man, sir,’ Barclay said. ‘He is called that for one reason only. Because he is a fool who cannot see straight or talk straight about anything.’
‘Do not laugh at me. I have crossed to many places between here and Mombasa. Even Paris and Amsterdam I have been inside there.’
‘You are a fool,’ said Barclay. ‘That is why you live here alone.’
‘I tell you.
I have been many places, I am not just manager of this refreshment centre. I have been a magnet for many professions of the earth, and I change all things. Even I have been a policeman. You see. Wait here.’
He rushed into the house, the vents of his suit jacket flapping behind him.
‘I am sorry, bwana, it is the only place to get a soft drink here,’ Barclay said.
‘It’s fine,’ I said, shrugging.
Angol-Steve came out with a dented brass bugle.
‘Listen,’ he said, and blew.
The sound went out over the bush, the two tones of it making me think of the cavalry in Westerns.
‘So you see. I did parade call for Uganda Police. It is truth.’
‘When was that?’ I said.
‘It was before. I have done it many times a distance ago. So, you are from London?’
‘No, I’m from Scotland, in fact.’
‘Scot-land. I know that place. Come, come with me just nearby here. There is a Scottish man lying near here.’
‘Eh, Angol, do not bother us with your lies,’ said the driver.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, fascinated.
We followed him out of the gate and through the trees, towards a patch of untilled ground among the millet stalks. A pied crow started up, disturbed by our passage. I watched it rise up and then bank away to the right.
‘No, no, that is only bird. Look here,’ said Angol. He squatted down and pulled away some vegetation. Underneath was a rock with a brass plaque riveted to it.
Astonished, I got down and read the faint letters:
HEREABOUTS
lies Alexander Colquhoun Boothby born 5 December 1842
and left Scotland his native country in 1871
and died 5 July 1893
Altogether he lived highly respected and beloved for his
integrity and his humanity and