Snakepit Read online

  He told his friends that he would be the first sergeant to own a gold-plated Oris Autocrat wristwatch with a round face and luminous hands. They laughed at him. Autocrats were worn by bank managers, generals, doctors, people in higher leagues. It was at a party that he first saw this watch of his dreams, gleaming on the wrist of a young man of his age. A doctor, lawyer, pilot? He almost had a fit. A month later, on Christmas Day, he stalked his quarry. The Autocrat would be a wonderful Christmas gift. He caught up with the man at one of those parties which sprouted everywhere on religious holidays. People were in a good mood. They had saved all year long in order to enjoy and indulge themselves for this once. The euphoria was contagious. Bazooka stood a distance away, hardly able to resist the temptation to rip the watch off the man’s wrist and dash away. The gold had probably been mined in South Africa or Zaïre, exported and then worked by skilful Swiss hands. The man had probably bought the watch in London. Many died mining gold; many died wearing it, he mused grimly. At ten o’clock he made his move. He joined the group at the table and said to the man, “The Autocrat or our lives.”

  “Over my dead body, you stupid goat-fucker,” the man replied angrily, drunkenly.

  “Well and good,” said Bazooka, removing a stick grenade from his pocket. He unscrewed the cap and held the pin. “Nobody moves. The Autocrat or our lives.”

  The four other men in the group begged the man to surrender the watch, saying things like, “Our lives are more precious than that piece of junk,” “Think about our wives and children,” “Don’t do this to us.” But the man refused.

  Bazooka ordered two men to remove the watch by force and hand it over to him. In the ensuing scuffle the grenade went off. Bazooka barely managed to dive out of harm’s way. The explosion rocked the place, blowing limbs and clothes off people. Prize in hand, momentarily deaf in one ear, he made a speedy return to base. News of the incident was reported in the morning paper: THREE KILLED IN GRENADE ACCIDENT. His friends called him General Oris.

  “I will make general one day,” he said grimly. They did not laugh.

  He continued to excel. His big break came when he unearthed a plot to kill two British military instructors and three African officers. A friend alerted him. He handed over the names, the details of the plot. Under interrogation the plotters confessed. The ringleaders were shot; Bazooka was promoted.

  He distinguished himself in combat, fighting like a devil, planning with genius. The sixties, with their profusion of armed robbers, were a boon. He was put in charge of the Armed Robbery Cracking Unit. The capital city and the entire Central Region came under his command. He led operations against heavily armed car-thieving rings and wiped them out with a minimum loss of men. He tackled kondos, the armed robbers who terrorized households, by luring them into traps and ambushes and destroying them in do-or-die shoot-outs. He usurped police powers, taking the war to the criminals and undermining the credibility of the institution, rendering it helpless.

  At the zenith of his power, he was made a full colonel and he met General Idi Amin, Commander of the Ugandan army. It was love at first sight. In Amin he saw a leader under whom he could rise to the very top. Amin, for one, recognized his potential, his future useability. In addition to the rest of his functions he was made head of a mobile brigade that carried out secret operations for Amin. He was sent to secure the South-western Region, where the January 21 coup found him. He took over the big towns of Masaka, Mbarara, Fort Portal and Toro. He locked up uncooperative army commanders, blocked roads with battle tanks and killed troublesome people. The mayor of Masaka, a staunch supporter of a recently fallen leader, was made to smoke his own penis before his body was dragged through the streets of the town.

  Bazooka had fond memories of those pre- and post-coup days. It was like a dream, the way one government crumbled and another one ate it up, sprouting, spreading like a devil mushroom to fill the void; the adrenaline, the testosterone, the euphoria, the sheer terror of it all . . .

  It took General Bazooka some time before he decided on how to handle Bat. On the one hand, he wanted to sabotage and destroy him; on the other, he wanted to give him a chance to prove or damn himself. He considered bugging his house with the help of Russian friends. But to what effect? Did he expect Bat to go around the house shouting anti-Amin slogans? The most effective way might be to put him at the mercy of Victoria Kayiwa. Two southerners destroying each other would be entertaining to watch. Victoria would do.

  BAT’S LIFE CHANGED almost overnight. A week after his interview he moved into a government villa at Entebbe, thirty-two kilometres away from the seat of government in Kampala. The house was built on a hill overlooking Lake Victoria and was serviced by a gardener, a cook and a watchman. It had a red-tile roof, huge windows, heavy oak doors, a long curving driveway, a flower garden and trees all the way down to the lake. To the north was the golf course, the Botanical Gardens, the zoo and the civilian and military airports. To the east, the new State House, a Catholic church and the town centre.

  Bat cherished every moment of his new life. The first thing he saw in the morning was the lake in the distance, and a sky with intimations of the day’s fine weather written across it. It was a postcard picture of beauty which never failed to captivate him. A number of colonial officials had occupied this house in the forties and fifties, although there was no physical evidence of their having passed through. In the garage he had a green racing Jaguar XJ10, a car which reminded him of London, Cambridge and his postgraduate dreams. He had bought it from a departing expatriate. In the first week, he cleaned it himself, soaping and rubbing it down, dusting the carpets and greasing the nuts and bolts. Villeneuve used to sing the praises of the Bentley, but Bat found it too thick, too big-bottomed to make an elegant driving machine. The Jaguar was smooth, lean and mean—in other words, perfect. There were two other XJ10s in the country, both owned by generals. For that reason, the soldiers at roadblocks never stopped him and some saluted when he passed, which sometimes made him laugh.

  At Makerere University, Bat had taken mathematics and economics. He had continued with the same at Cambridge, ultimately majoring in mathematics. He had chosen those dry subjects from the very beginning in order to combat his impulsiveness, an instinct that had compelled him, back in his secondary school days, to write a letter threatening to kill a boy who had refused to give back his transistor radio. Bat’s father had lent him the radio, which had been in the family for twenty years. He, in turn, had lent it to the boy who had convinced him that he needed it badly and would bring it back soon. The boy, however, refused to honour his promise. As a result, Bat’s father refused to give him pocket money. In an unthinking moment Bat wrote the fateful letter. A few days later a police detective visited his father at his coffee ginnery. Bat and his father reported to the nearest police station. He faced seven years in prison. He was scared shitless. He had had no intention of effecting the threat he outlined in the letter. Luckily, his father knew somebody in the police force and they escaped after paying a large bribe. The radio was returned the same afternoon; everybody was embarrassed, as it looked old and not worth such bother. From then on Bat decided to gain control over his life. He kept few friends and so had little trouble from the outside world.

  Now as he sat in his office overlooking the Parliament Building, he marveled at how quickly his life had changed. How apt his choice of mathematics had been! It seemed as if these days every student wanted to study languages and history, probably because they were cheaper and one needed fewer books and none of the very expensive apparatus the sciences could not do without. Yet every employer seemed to be crying out for scientists, engineers, economists and mathematicians, and the ministry was no exception. Here the situation was exacerbated by the large presence of Amin’s uneducated stooges. These former butchers, garbagemen and loafers held on to power by surrounding themselves with yes-men and throwing violent temper tantrums. These were men who could hardly multiply ten times ten. You had to write out the numbe
rs in words for some of them to do it. Bat did his best to keep out of such people’s way, but now and then they cornered him and asked very dull questions about policy issues, the mechanics of running the ministry, things they would never understand even after a hundred lectures. They came to him for help to open bank accounts in the local Commercial Bank. They relied on their thumbprints in order to make sure that nobody would forge their signatures and swindle their money, or because they were afraid they would forget their own signatures. A few came to ask how to open bank accounts in Switzerland, Libya or Saudi Arabia. He turned them away.

  Given the state of affairs, it was a miracle that the government was running at all. The little success there was was a testimony to the resilience of the intellectual element that did work behind the scenes and in secret, men and women continually frustrated by Amin’s stooges, who did not give a damn if it all went up in smoke, as long as they were not caught in the crossfire. Operating in the midst of such scum, Bat sometimes felt like a herdsman in charge of perverse pigs, dangerous and bad-tempered animals which shat everywhere and could snap and bite at any moment. His main task was to call for the modernization of the ministry. He wanted to purchase new equipment for the dam, the telephone network, and to train more engineers and specialists. He kept making recommendations and pressing for change. General Bazooka listened carefully, but he often replied that there were no funds. No funds when military hardware kept arriving in the form of new MiG 250 fighter-bombers, Russian TX 3000 battle tanks, AK-57 assault rifles, to mention but a few. While Bat waited for funds, he concentrated on reorganizing the ministry, weeding out unnecessary posts and cutting down on the red tape, which clogged the whole system and made the ministry less effective.

  The evolution of a daily routine pleased Bat very much. He woke up early each morning, drove to the city, outraced most cars on the way, and arrived at his office with the high of speed still fizzing in his blood. His day was dominated by dictating letters, attending meetings, and poring over documents. He ate his lunch at his desk, except when he had to attend a luncheon with dignitaries, and drove his team like they were a pack of donkeys. After a twelve-hour day he would drive home to rest. Twice or thrice a week he would go to Wandegeya to meet the Kalandas and the Professor.

  Mr. Kalanda worked in the Barclays Bank, his wife in the Uganda Commercial Bank. He was an old university friend with whom Bat used to share a room on campus. They used to do many things together, including double-dating. Between them they had financed three abortions. Now and then, Bat wondered whether Kalanda had told his wife all about their campus escapades. It had been Kalanda who had advised him to try the Ministry of Power and who had read him the rules of survival: “Keep out of politics. Keep democracy and human rights outcries on a tight leash. Keep your passport with you at all times.”

  Mrs. Kalanda was a fine cook, and she would often prepare something delicious to go with their beer. They would sit outside on the veranda and talk, argue, joke and watch night fall. If there was no shooting, they would stay there for hours, relaxing, enjoying the cool, scented evening air. If rifles started popping, they would hurry inside and Bat would depart when the commotion ended.

  Bat received many invitations to weddings. Preparing for and attending weddings had become the number-one pastime in the land, rivalled only by séancing. The ruling class of soldiers, pirates, gangsters and hangers-on showed a huge passion for it. The fact that many of them were Muslims, allowed to marry four wives, and that they had plenty of money to throw around, meant that there was no shortage of big wedding feasts. Nowadays, a man’s worth was measured by the number of guests invited to his wedding, the length of the bridal train, the number of bands which played on the day and the bulls butchered. There were weddings which lasted weeks, as the celebrations moved from the husband’s family to the bride’s family and back, attracting carousers like flies on rotting fruit. Eating, as a sport, flourished, and no wedding was complete without a group of men vying to put away amazing heaps of offal, roasted lamb and goat, gigantic Nile Perch fish cooked whole and huge platters of cassava, sweet potatoes and matooke. The sight of gluttons masquerading as competitive eaters and ending up drooling, vomiting, and getting their stomachs pumped, became part of the spectacle. Wrestling, for one reason or another, had become an integral part of such occasions, with armies of pseudo-wrestlers moving from wedding to wedding, their oiled bodies on display.

  There were many weddings Bat attended because General Bazooka or Bureaucrat One had no time and sent him in their stead. It was at one such gathering that he met Victoria Kayiwa. The reception was in the Nile Perch Hotel gardens. The afternoon was dying away, slowly letting in a cool evening. Bat was nursing his drink while listening to an army officer with bad breath who was going on about CIA infiltration and sabotage, and how all missionaries were secret agents stringing for foreign countries. He had tried to attract her attention on two occasions, but each time she had been talking to a bullish general with medals down to his knees. In fact, he had gotten the impression that she was the wife of a general. For many of these northerners a young southern wife was a status symbol to go with the six-door Boomerang 600 or sporty 300 break horsepower Euphoria. The staunch polygamists often paraded their harems, led by fellow northerner first wives and flanked by the younger southern trophies. Finally, he saw her walking towards him out of the corner of his eye. She was impressive, with a lean, tubular frame that made her cow most women. He could see her breasts swollen under the red cloth of her dress, her thighs carved by the long, flowing garment, her head carried by a long neck. As if on cue, the officer who was lecturing him slipped away, making her arrival all the more pleasing. There was a preliminary exchange of greetings and banter, during which both of them knew that something was going to happen between them.

  “Which security organization are you representing tonight?” Bat said lightheartedly.

  “Are you accusing me of being a spy, sir?” Victoria said, looking Bat straight in the face, the corners of her mouth forming a smile.

  “Otherwise, what would you be doing here amidst this sleaze?” he said, making a sweeping motion with his glass.

  “I was invited just like you, sir. This is beginning to sound like a police interrogation,” she complained with a face that showed the opposite emotion.

  “It is a police interrogation. These days one has to move like a snail, with the antenna up, picking up all the necessary signals for survival,” he replied, smiling.

  “You are right, sir,” Victoria said, draining the last of her drink.

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Soda, just like everybody else.”

  Bat signalled a waiter to bring her a drink. His stomach felt heavy with the Pepsi he had been drinking all afternoon to combat the heat and for lack of any alternative. He watched as she picked a glass with care and raised it in a modest toast. To us, to danger, to adventure, he said under his breath, feeling a sweet recklessness rising inside him. He wanted her, this mysterious girl, and he was ready to take the risk. He didn’t see much of a future with her, not with somebody floating in these murky circles, but she had to be a terrific fuck, a good way to relieve the pressure of work. After hours of poring over dry material, digesting estimates and mathematical projections, he needed to revel in unreason, and indulge in a bit of impulse. He craved intoxication, real physical satisfaction. What speed could not massage away, a thick crotch might.

  “Where do you live?”

  “In the city, like everybody else,” she replied, looking at him over the rim of her glass. “How about you, sir?” she said, baiting him with yet another sign of respect—after all, he was a big man.

  “Entebbe, by the lake, near the State House,” he said with boyish airs, unable to resist this opportunity to show off. It actually felt good although it was obviously overkill.

  “It sounds very exciting.”

  “The setting is so aesthetic,” he said, enjoying yet another boast and realiz
ing that, because he was unable to boast to the Kalandas, this young woman was a perfect victim.

  “Ah, that sounds like the name of a car,” she said, looking pleased with her retort.

  “Never mind,” he said, knowing well that he was talking to a social climber. It suited him perfectly, for the last thing he wanted was to talk about work or academics with somebody who had been to university but had failed to amount to much. She had probably been to secondary school, judging from the way she spoke, which was fine by local standards. “I am thinking of leaving.”

  “It figures if you live so far away.”

  “Not necessarily. I drive very fast. It is just that I am tired of this company and the soft drinks.”

  “I would not blame you, sir.”

  “Do you need a lift or do you drive your own Boomerang?” he said, smiling and thinking about how white her teeth were. He wished his teeth sparkled like hers.

  “A lift would be just fine. I happen to be a woman of modest means.”

  “You ought to listen more carefully to the radio. They say everything is possible and that everybody can become stinking rich in this country.”