The Last King of Scotland
Page 36
‘Hello,’ I say.
‘Hello, my good friend. Is it you, Doctor Nicholas?’
I say nothing, imagining Sara coming out of the sea like a mermaid.
‘Hello, hello?’
Outside, I hear the deep moan of the ocean. I think of the island, my island, settling on the waves like a butterfly as that brochure had it, and of Mr Malumba’s hill, blown by a magic power through the skies of Africa, smothering all beneath it.
‘I know you are hearing me. I know it. Yes, I am here in Saudi Arabia, studying democracy. I’m badly in need of your advice. The Saudi contact in London, he fetched your telephone for me. It is true. You were always a kind man to me, and I need your advice. The American government has asked me to intervene again with Ayatollah Khomeini, my old friend, about the hostages held there in Iran. Shall I do this thing? I think so, even though I will tell them that if I had commanded the foolish mission to rescue them, it would have been successful … like your SAS storming of the Iranian Embassy in London recently. They are good fighters, so good they must in truth be the Scottish Air Service. Anyway, the world is causing much trouble for Iranians, isn’t it?’
I see the brown wings of a skua flap by the window, the great skua with the white patch, the robber-gull, which feeds by forcing other birds to disgorge.
‘On the subject of raids, I have been watching very closely the feature film of when the Israelis were visiting Entebbe. I say it is stupid and ridiculous to feed public opinion on bogus events and deceive people with falsehoods for the sake of money. You know that one of the actors died while the camera was running. It was a punishment by Allah and should be a lesson to those who want to imitate Field Marshal Amin …’
As he continues talking, my eye follows the steep fall of the island down to the sea. The whole is more fairy-like and romantic than – I must confess my thoughts take this shape – anything I ever saw outside of a theatre. It is exactly the sort of place, in fact, where, bridged across from one rocky side-slip to another, brigands or the supporters of some fanatical cause might assemble round their leader.
‘… what do you think? Doctor Nicholas? Since you ask, I am very happy here in Jeddah. I have a Chevy Caprice, a nice house on the beach and one wife is easier, I have found. I am wearing white robes and reading the Koran most studiously. And I go swimming every day. In the Red Sea …’
In the end, I just put the phone down on him, his voice getting fainter as my hand goes down. I stare at the receiver in the cradle. And then I say to myself, I must pin up that honeysuckle in the porch. I will dig out a hammer and nails from among Eamonn’s tools and do it.
Acknowledgements
Insofar as this is a historical record (and, indeed, otherwise), I am greatly indebted to the following for source material in books, newspaper reports, films and photographs; also, in certain cases, for eyewitness statements dictated to the author: Mohamed Amin (deceased); Tony Avirgan; Adioma Ayubare; Philip Briggs; Wilson Carswell FRCS; John Craven FRCS; Anthony Daniels; Richard Dowden; Richard Ellis; S.S. Farsi; Mary Anne Fitzgerald; Sandy Gall; Iain Grahame; Max Hastings; Denis Hills; Martha Honey; John Isoba; Judith, Countess of Listowel; Bishop Festo Kivengere (deceased); Henry Kyemba; David Lubogo; Ali Mazrui; David Martin; Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda; Edward Mutesa, Kabaka of Buganda (deceased); Phares Mutibwa; A.F. Robertson; Barbet Schroeder; George Ivan Smith; Rolf Steiner; Dr Harriet Stewart; John Stonehouse (deceased); Brian Tetley (deceased); Philip Warnock.
I would further like to express my thanks to those personal informants currently living in Uganda who gave interviews but asked for their names to be withheld – and to the many friends and colleagues who kindly read the manuscript.
Extracts from Bailey & Love’s Short Practice of Surgery by kind permission of Chapman & Hall Ltd. Extract from Ghosts of Kampala by George Ivan Smith by kind permission of Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
G. F
Author biography
Giles Foden was born in Warwickshire in 1967. At the age of five he moved with his family to Africa, where they lived in various countries (including Uganda) until 1993.
In addition to the 1998 Whitbread First Novel Award, The Last King of Scotland won a Somerset Maugham Award, a Betty Trask Award, and the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. Giles Foden’s second novel, Ladysmith (1999), was praised by The Times as ‘a cracking old-fashioned adventure story, as well as a fascinating account of a historical period’. His most recent novel, Zanzibar (2002), was acclaimed in the New Statesman as ‘a fascinating read: Wilbur Smith meets William Boyd in the warm seas and spice-scented air of Zanzibar’, and described in the Independent on Sunday as ‘a truly powerful political thriller’. Giles Foden is also the author of a non-fiction book, Mimi and Toutou Go Forth: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika.
Further acclaim for The Last King of Scotland
‘In a first novel of thrilling immediacy, Foden tells the luckless and bloody story of a young Scottish doctor in the Ugandan bush. He is plucked from obscurity by Idi Amin to act first as medical adviser, then as cynical admirer, lastly as unwilling and often imperilled witness to the dictator’s bloodlusts. With docu-drama fidelity, Foden sticks closely to the plot – but it is his deep feeling for Africa and a mature imagination which power a novel that is happy in the marriage of content and style.’ Daily Mail
A brilliantly realized account of Idi’s (unfinished) life and career … an exhilarating success, and proof that the modern English novel can work with the big themes of politics and history.’ Peter Bradshaw, Modern Review
‘The characterization of Amin is highly convincing, the childish grossness and wonky charm far too much like the real thing for comfort. He is a vividly present personality, weak when tempted, forceful when thwarted, massively ignorant but with a fatal gleam of intelligence … An imposing début.’ Hugo Barnacle, Sunday Times
‘It compares favourably with Ryszard Kapuscinski’s evocation of Haile Selassie in his novel The Emperor … Taking fiction into such territory as this is to be applauded. The Last King of Scotland is an auspicious début that bodes well for Foden’s future work.’ Russell Celyn Jones, The Times
‘The central figure, and in many ways the hero, of this powerful first novel is Idi Amin … Foden has given us a dark, often comic picture of a country and a part of man where “God is not driving”, in a superb first novel which demon-strates that he is a writer of tremendous invention and promise.’ Paul Pickering, Independent
‘The shockingly surreal raw material of Idi Amin’s character is put to complex fictional use. Foden’s Amin is not just a monster, he is – mysteriously – touching and almost appealing, even while showing off an archbishop’s frozen severed head. That is a genuine imaginative achievement.’ Maggie Gee, Daily Telegraph
‘Foden’s Idi is a startingly interesting creation. He has the measure of the despot’s “wicked brilliance”.’ Paul Bailey, Observer
Copyright
First published in 1998
by Faber and Faber Limited
3 Queen Square London WC1N 3AU
This ebook edition first published in 2008
All rights reserved
©Giles Foden, 1998
The right of Giles Foden to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
ISBN 978—0—571—24617—5 (epub)