by Tina Athaide
“Leave them,” Papa barked. He gestured for Asha to start gathering the plates.
“Wahindi waende nyumbani!” the crowds continued chanting as the Ugandan team pounded their cricket bats into the ground, thumping an angry rhythm. The ground beneath Asha’s feet seemed to tremble.
“Asha!” Mama waved her arms. “Hurry up.”
All around, clusters of people scrambled to gather their belongings. Some children stood frozen, wide-eyed with fear. Others wailed as their parents grabbed their hands and tugged them out of the park. Panic. Fear. It was everywhere. Their neighbor Uma Auntie—Leela and Neela’s aunt—struggled up the hill. Coach followed, lugging her basket. Asha started rolling up the woven mats.
“Leave it. Let’s go!” Papa yanked Asha to her feet. Mama grabbed what she could hold and they ran toward the parking lot.
Asha struggled to keep up with Papa’s long strides. She stumbled and Papa tightened his grip. Elbows and baskets jabbed at her as he dragged her into the jumble of cars, bicycles, and people rushing to get out. A car screeched to a halt as Papa ran in its path.
Horns blared.
Engines growled.
Asha felt like her heart was about to burst out of her body. Exhaust fumes burned her throat. She willed her legs to keep moving. To run faster. She wanted to get home, to her room. She’d be safe there. Away from the soldiers. Away from Idi Amin.
She scrambled into the back seat and barely shut the door before Papa pulled out of the parking lot. Asha spun around and looked back. The cheers continued . . . gradually getting quieter the farther they drove away.
“I knew he couldn’t be trusted.” Papa’s voice sounded weary.
“This doesn’t change anything,” said Mama. “You have citizenship. We don’t have to leave our home.”
“This isn’t just about a house . . . our things,” said Papa. “It’s about our children. Have you not seen the soldiers? Seen the guns they point at our children like it’s—it’s some kind of joke?”
“Enough, Ashok! Nothing has happened to anyone’s child. Nothing. All this rubbish with Amin will pass.”
“Thousands of applications for citizenship have been canceled. Nine years some of them have been waiting for their citizenship to go through. Since independence.”
“What are you saying?” Mama asked.
“I’ve been waiting to get final word on my citizenship papers. Now we know it’s been revoked. We are running out of time. And the British . . . you think they will allow all of us in? No, Mira, we need to leave. Now.”
Asha stared out the window at the green hills. Papa may be ready to go, but she wasn’t.
19
Yesofu
THE VILLAGE BUZZED with excitement, gathering to sing and dance the traditional nankasa and bakisimba. It didn’t matter that not everyone in the village was part of the Ganda tribe. Today they joined together as a group to celebrate. An Africa for Africans. Yesofu picked up two empty pails and headed to the well, his feet moving to the beat of the embuutu and engalabi drums. He wanted to feel the same thrill that Akello, Salim, and Yasid felt over the president’s news, but he couldn’t get Asha out of his head. He’d even tried to join in their celebrations, worried how it would look to his friends if he didn’t. They were his brothers, his family. It felt like he was betraying them by not joining in, but wrong if he did.
Akello’s feet came scuffing through the grass toward him. “Why do you look like you’ve been sucking on raw mangos?” Akello made a sour face.
“I was thinking about what President Amin said today.”
Akello was looking at him funny. “You’re thinking about Asha.”
Of course he was. She didn’t deserve to be kicked out. Overhead clouds were building. A flock of tiny birds swooped and dove into the bushes, disappearing into the darkness. Yesofu glanced at Akello as they zigzagged past the old ground well up to the central well with the hand pump. The tall elephant grass surrounding the village crackled like the thoughts in his head. If he couldn’t be real with Akello, then who? Yesofu took a deep breath. “You know what I think?”
“What?” Akello set his pail under the spout, placed both hands on the long handle, and pulled down hard.
Yesofu hesitated, and then plunged on before he lost his courage. “I think that . . . things could change . . . I mean, they can change without getting rid of all the Indians.”
From deep inside the well, a gurgling rumbled beneath Yesofu’s feet.
“You don’t get it . . . do you?” Akello’s arm pumped up and down. “This is our land. They don’t belong here.” Water gushed out of the spout. “Asha lives in her big house. She goes to fancy dances at her club. She doesn’t have to worry about money. She doesn’t have to quit school.” Akello stopped suddenly.
“Neither do you,” said Yesofu. “I can ask Baba to talk to your dad.”
“It won’t matter. It’s the only way we’ll be ready.”
“For what?” Yesofu pulled down on the pump and water spilled into the pail.
“Once the Indians go, there’ll be land to buy . . . shops for sale.” Akello picked up the second pail of water and handed it to Yesofu. Thunder rumbled overhead and they quickly started down the hill.
“So you’re okay taking from the Indians?” he challenged Akello.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right.” Yesofu imagined Kintu at Café Nile. He’d worked for Mr. Bhatt for years. Bet he wished he could own his own café. But was it right to kick out Mr. Bhatt and give Café Nile to Kintu?
“It’s not like I’d be stealing,” said Akello.
“In a way . . .” Their eyes met, each daring the other to back down.
“You want Asha to stay. But did you ever think that it may not be good for her?”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s your friend. I get that.” Akello stopped in front of his place. “But she needs to go. Her Uganda is changing. It’s going to be an Africa for Africans. Not an Africa for Indians and Africans.”
Rain tapped on the iron-sheeted roofs, making a racket as loud as all the noise in Yesofu’s head. He tried to make sense of everything as he walked back to his hut. Staying may not be good for Asha. But he couldn’t imagine his life without her. Who would help him make sense of those long, boring stories in English class? Who would help him find the best banana leaves that always won the downhill races? Who would save extra samosas for him when the Entebbe Institute had big parties? Who’d laugh at his jokes? The rain was coming down harder now. Yesofu hurried. Uganda may be changing, but that didn’t mean all Indians had to leave. Staying would be good for Asha.
He was right. He was sure of it.
20
Asha
“WHAT AM I going to do?” Asha asked Teelu. She’d snuck into Papa’s office to make the long-distance call to her sister in London. “Everyone is starting to leave. Our neighbors. Kids at school and at the club. And now Papa wants us to go too.”
Two weeks had passed since the cricket match. Thirty-six days remaining, the radio announcer had shouted from Fara’s static-filled radio at breakfast this morning. The newspaper on Papa’s desk confirmed the countdown. Asha had to figure out how to stop Papa before he made them leave.
“You have to help, Teelu. Papa went to the bank yesterday to apply for travel vouchers. He almost got them too, but couldn’t because he needed different paperwork.”
“Where are Papa and Mama?”
“In the sitting room with Mr. Gupta and Coach and his parents.” Asha had woken this morning to everyone arriving at the house. “Teelu, you have to help me figure out a way to convince Papa to stay.”
“Listen, Asha . . .”
“Wait.” Asha cut her off. Whenever Teelu started a sentence with listen, Asha, it usually meant she was about to say something Asha wouldn’t like. “If you’re going to say I should listen to Papa, then I am hanging up.”
Teelu sighed. “Do you remember w
hen you had nightmares and would run to my room in the middle of the night?”
“Yes. You’d tell me stories of Ganesh so I’d go back to sleep.” Ganesh was the chubby, gentle, wise elephant-headed Hindu god known to remove obstacles. Leela and Neela had given Asha a small statue of him as a gift. President Amin was the biggest obstacle in her life right now. His big, round face stared at Asha from the front page of the Uganda Argus as her sister blabbed in her ear. Mr. Gupta had written an article about President Amin hurting Uganda by making Indians leave. Asha picked up a blue pen and scribbled on the president’s face. “I’m not a little kid anymore, Teelu,” Asha interrupted.
“I know,” Teelu continued. “I learned something new about Ganesh from my Hindu friend.”
Asha scrunched up the newspaper and threw it across the room. “What?”
“She told me that Ganesh also places obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked, to stop us from doing things without thinking it through . . .”
Asha stopped listening. Sitting under the newspaper were two passports belonging to Papa and Mama. At sixteen, Asha would get her own passport, but for now, she could travel under Mama’s—not that she’d ever thought she would need to. Papa had probably taken the passports out when he went to apply for their travel vouchers and forgot to put them away. Ganesh had given her what she needed to remove the obstacle in her way. Without the passports they couldn’t leave, and even though Papa worked for the ministry of tourism, it would still take time to get new ones. Time for someone to stop President Amin.
“Asha. Are you there? Hello?” Teelu’s voice pulled Asha back to the phone.
“Yes. I’m listening and you’re right.” She picked up the passports and shoved them inside the pocket of her school skirt.
“London isn’t so bad once you get used to it.”
“Yeah. Okay. Look, I have to go. I’ll see you when you come home.”
“No, Asha, wait.”
Asha hung up. She heard voices. It sounded like people were leaving. She couldn’t let Papa find her inside his office. She quickly slipped out and darted upstairs to her bedroom. She needed a good hiding place for the passports. Somewhere nobody would find them, especially Fara. She was up here cleaning every day and would find them under the mattress or tucked in her clothes. She needed to put them inside something . . . like a case. She saw her carrom bag sitting on her desk. It was perfect. Asha opened up the leather ten-inch square bag and slipped the passports inside among the black-and-tan round discs, pulling the drawstring tightly. She looked at the tall wardrobe with all her clothes. On the bottom shelf, her sandals and shoes lay in a tumbled mess, but the next shelf up was a stack of sweaters. She tucked the carrom bag behind them. She smiled at herself in the mirror. Already relieved.
“Asha!” Fara called out from downstairs. “Hurry up. You’ll be late for school.”
Asha slipped on her shoes and ran downstairs. As she passed the sitting room, she heard Mama.
“I wish you wouldn’t get involved.”
Her voice sounded tense, and Asha pictured Mama wringing the edge of her dupatta in her hands, tighter and tighter.
“I have to,” said Papa. “People we know are trying to get out. Their passports are being confiscated. They can only buy tickets using Uganda shillings—no other currency—and they need written approval from the Bank of Uganda. . . . Applications are stacked . . . the deadline is approaching. Amin is getting more and more dangerous.”
“Exactly,” said Mama. “Anyone suspected of disloyalty to President Amin is being . . .”
Mama’s voice cracked and quieted, and Asha heard two words. “. . . too risky.”
Risky? What was Papa doing? Asha stepped closer and the floor creaked beneath her feet. The voices stopped. Every muscle in her body froze. Mama’s sari rustled and footsteps shuffled closer. If Asha ran, they’d hear her and know she’d been eavesdropping. She held herself still. After a minute, the conversation continued and she relaxed.
“What if something goes wrong?” Mama asked.
“It won’t.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“You’re right,” said Papa. “I don’t.”
A pang of fear shot through Asha. Papa worked at the tourism office. Was he helping people get out of Uganda? The president wanted Indians gone. He should be happy Papa was helping them leave. It had to be something else—but what? Footsteps clomped up the verandah steps. She looked up, surprised to see Esi.
“Open up,” he called through the screen door.
Asha hurried over and pushed open the door. Esi held a sack of rice in his arms and stumbled inside, pretending to collapse from the weight.
“Asante,” Esi thanked her. He paused and looked at Asha. “What are you up to?”
Asha felt her face get hot. “What? I’m not doing anything.”
BANG! Mama or Papa had shut the door to the sitting room.
Esi’s eyebrow shot up. “Not listening in on your parents?”
“What? No.” Asha hurried toward the kitchen, Esi following.
“Here’s the rice, Mamma,” he said as he stepped into the kitchen.
“Asante sana,” Fara thanked him. She shook her wet hands over the sink and gestured with her chin toward the cupboard. “Put it there.”
Fara wiped her wet hands on her apron and smiled at Asha. “There’s my malaika,” she said, greeting Asha with her special nickname.
“I thought I was your angel,” Esi said, and stuck out his bottom lip, pretending to pout. Esi was joking, but Asha wondered if he and Yesofu ever got jealous about having to share Fara. She was like a second mother to Teelu and Asha. Did that bother them?
Fara gave Esi a playful pinch on his ear. “You’re my shetani.”
Devil. Asha laughed. Esi hooked his two fingers on his head like horns and rushed at Fara. She swatted him with the wet dish towel, but he snatched it away and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
Asha picked up her lunch tiffin that Fara had prepared and said goodbye to Fara and Esi. On her way out the door, she glanced upstairs, feeling a tiny twinge of something—guilt. Doubt. Worry. She thought of having to leave her home and pushed aside her uncertainty. She’d done the right thing taking the passports. And with that thought, Asha stepped out onto the verandah, breathing in the sweet-smelling bougainvillea and hibiscus bushes.
21
Yesofu
IN THE DISTANCE, Yesofu heard a loud clanging—the warning bell—and broke into a sprint. He pulled open the door and stepped inside just as the final bell rang, almost running into Cecil, a younger primary class five student. Extra desks and kids crammed inside, filling every space, so that he couldn’t even walk through without bumping into someone. Coach stood in his usual spot with his back to the class, writing on the board. From the opposite side of the room, Asha waved. She’d saved him his usual seat behind her, which was a good thing because every other seat was taken.
Who was Akello to tell him he had to pick between his Indian and African friends? He just wanted Yesofu to dump Asha and Simon. It wasn’t happening.
“So, what’s going on?” He pointed around. “Why are there are so many kids?”
Leela leaned over. “They combined the different classes.”
“Not enough teachers,” Asha added.
Neela looked at Yesofu. “President Amin made them leave.” She pulled her book out of her bag and dropped it onto her desk.
Yesofu locked his jaw, determined not to let Neela get to him. He hated how she made him feel like he was somehow responsible for what was happening at their school. Neela looked like a rose, but she was all pokey and prickly. Yesofu didn’t understand how she and Leela were twins.
A wadded piece of paper hit Yesofu in the back of the head and he turned. Oh man. How was this possible? The class was divided. And he was the only African on this side of the room. In the far-left corner by the bookcase, he saw Akello, glaring. Yesofu lifted his hand to wave, until he saw
the empty desk behind Akello. He turned around, wishing that he’d looked around before sitting by Asha. Behind him, Salim and Yasid chuckled. Yesofu felt his face get hot. He gripped the edge of his seat. He didn’t think sitting with Asha and Simon was wrong, but still he felt like a traitor.
“Quiet down,” said Coach Edwin, flipping through the pages in his text. “I want students in primary classes four and five to get started on their math. Students in primary classes six and seven, take out your maps. We’re going to review geography.”
Neela cleared her throat. She raised her hand and blurted out, “Is it true the president can make all Indians leave?”
All eyes turned toward Neela. Yesofu sank lower in his chair, wondering if he could make it to the empty desk behind Akello without the whole class noticing. Coach ignored Neela and called on Simon to read. Simon stared at his book, saying nothing. Yesofu kicked the leg of Simon’s desk.
“Is there a problem?” Coach looked around the class.
“Um,” stammered Simon. “Is it true . . . what Neela said about the president?”
Not Simon too. Why did all this have to get in the way of school? He’d never be ready for the end of primary exams. Or secondary school.
“It’s true,” said Salim.
“He already is making you leave,” added Yasid. “You don’t belong here.”
“That’s crazy,” said Leela. “We’ve lived here just as long as you.”
Coach tugged at his tie. “Let’s move on.”
“It doesn’t matter if we were born here,” said Simon. “He wants us out and we have to go.” He stopped like the words were stuck in his throat. “My family’s leaving once our travel vouchers for the United States come in.”
What? The United States was thousands and thousands of miles away. When had this happened? Simon hadn’t said anything when they were at practice yesterday.