Where the Air is Sweet (25 page)

23

J
AAFAR IS IN NAIROBI SELLING GOLD.

A handful of African salesmen, deprived of their customer base after the expulsion, approached Jaafar and Raju one morning holding matchboxes filled with gold nuggets. Jaafar bought them and drove to Nairobi, where he showed them to Asian jewellers. The gold was 24-karat and solid. Good quality. Back in Uganda, he sold the Kenyan currency the jewellers had paid him at a premium.

With the rising Kenyan shilling and the falling Ugandan shilling, Jaafar can make money with money. He has found a source of income. Two times, Jaafar told Raju, the jewellers told him he had been duped; the nuggets were brass. The loss is small. Most of the time the gold is authentic and the jewellers pay him well for it.

“We should buy things, goods we can sell abroad. It’s the best way to get money out of the country,” Jaafar tells Raju. He suggests they visit the shop in the army barracks to buy a new stereo system. He tells Raju to shop as well, buy anything he wishes. As they walk out to the car, Raju looks across the
street at the house that belonged to Gopal Sharma. The locks are broken, the new owners, soldiers from the barracks, hastily moving in. He knows it is only a matter of time before Baku’s house is taken over, his own house is taken over.

Raju has decided he will buy Mumtaz a new camera. As he is looking at some in the barracks shop, a corporal walks up and points to a camera with a handle. “It’s a Super 8. It makes films,” the corporal says. “It’s very modern. We have a projector as well.”

Raju nods. Mumtaz would enjoy making films. “I’ll take the camera,” he says.

Jaafar approaches them. He suggests buying the projector and a screen to watch some films. “We need entertainment, Bapa,” he says. “Do you have any films, any reels?” Jaafar asks the corporal. “So we can check to make sure the projector works?”

The corporal walks to the counter and rummages through a cardboard box. He lifts three reels out and hands them to Jaafar. “These are marked to be thrown out. We don’t need them back.”

That evening, Raju, Jaafar and Amir sit down to watch a film.

“The army’s rubbish,” Amir says. “This should be entertaining.”

Yozefu turns off the lamps.

The film is a series of images so overexposed Raju cannot guess what they are.

“It really is rubbish,” Jaafar says. “Let’s try another one.” He removes the reel and places another one in the projector.

At first, Raju does not pay attention. He is staring at the screen, a cigarette between his fingers. But his thoughts have turned to the sofa he is sitting on, to the furniture Jaafar told
Mubinga he could eventually have. When Jaafar bought it, new, imported, Raju hesitated to sit on it because it was so precious, so valuable.

The black-and-white images on the screen penetrate Raju’s mind slowly, as though they are being formed in the moment he sees them. Army exercises? He lifts his hand to cover his mouth. Twelve, maybe fourteen men are lined up, side by side in the dirt. Their limbs are bound in unnatural positions, so that their breastbones jut forward, their rib cages push against their skin, their heads are pulled back, the tendons in their necks protruding. Their feet and hands are intertwined behind them, as though someone knotted together their wrists and ankles. They are in shorts, underpants or shorn-off trousers; he cannot tell. Otherwise they are naked. Their faces are puffy and dark blood rolls down their bodies. Their eyes are closed tightly. Their mouths are open. Raju can hear only the clicking of the reel in the projector. Soldiers line up behind them and begin pounding their backs, their heads with the butts of their rifles. More blood appears. The soldiers aim their guns at the backs of the men’s heads. They fall, their limp, bound bodies hitting the ground sideways, bouncing slightly, like tires. The projector is turned off and the lights switched on. Jaafar, who is standing next to the lamp, tells Yozefu to go, to take the rest of the night off. When he leaves, he sits down beside Raju.

“What is it? Is it real? Is this real killing?” Jaafar asks.

Amir unscrews the lid of a bottle of Johnnie Walker and begins pouring. Except for the sound of whiskey falling into a glass, it is silent. Raju puts out his cigarette in the ashtray in front of him. He stares at a plate of
nsenene
on the coffee table. Suddenly, the fried grasshoppers he had been eating only
minutes earlier look revolting to him. His stomach lurches. He looks up, breathes slowly, deeply, until the feeling passes.

“These men are tied up, tortured,” Amir says. “And Ugandan soldiers are killing them. You can see their uniforms clearly. But where is this? Who are they killing?”

“Other soldiers? Guerrillas? Langi peasants?” It is Jaafar. Raju cannot speak. His brain is moving quickly to process what he has seen. Still, it cannot move quickly enough. Jaafar draws the curtains. The lights are turned off and the film begins again. Raju does not know which of his sons turned off the lights, which one restarted the film.

A bulldozer is digging up earth, mounds of it. Raju cannot recognize the place. It is open land. Tilled. A farm? Where? It is not familiar. Bodies, forty, fifty of them, are pushed like piles of dead grasshoppers by the bulldozer into a mass grave. He closes his eyes. The light is on again and the film stopped.

“What the hell is this?” Amir asks. “This is what the army does?” He looks at Raju and then Jaafar. “And they film it?”

“We have to do something,” Jaafar says. “Get this to the BBC or someone, anyone.”

Amir is shaking his head. “No. Leave it. What if we get caught? It’s not worth it.”

“But we should get this out—”

“It’s too risky,” says Amir, cutting Jaafar off. “We’ll bury the film. If Amin is overthrown, maybe we can dig it up. In the yard. I’ll do it. I’ll put all the reels in the ground.”

“Karim played football today. It was so cold, I absolutely refused him. But he begged me and I backed down. Some police cadets
organized games. It’s a huge property here. He was happy, his cheeks and nose all pink, his trousers muddy. And last weekend they held a tea party, with games and dancing.”

“Did Shama dance?” Raju’s voice sounds hollow to him, as if he is in a tunnel.

“Oh yes, and she sang. She was a hit. They are making us feel welcome, really welcome. It feels less strange. Some women are helping with cooking, so we have tastier food nowadays. We all look after cleaning our own rooms and we take turns cleaning the washrooms. I posted a schedule on the wall. Lots of grumbling and complaining about that. But everyone follows it. I’ve become the sergeant major of toilets.” Mumtaz laughs. Raju closes his eyes and listens. He does not want her to stop.

Jaafar and Amir begin to drive to Kampala in the evenings. They have eaten everything on the menu in the barracks and Yozefu has limited cooking abilities. Besides, Jaafar tells Raju, driving to Kampala takes time, passes time. They eat dinner at the few restaurants and hotels functioning in the capital: the Phoenix, the restaurants at the Speke Hotel, the Imperial and the Apollo Hotel. Diplomats, expats and the few Asians still in Kampala frequent these restaurants. Once, Raju agrees to join them. When they reach the city, Amir leaves Raju and Jaafar to visit a friend in Old Kampala.

In the restaurant, many of the Europeans recognize Jaafar. They are keen to help; they are sorry, they tell Raju, for their situation.

After Raju and Jaafar are finished eating, two men, the managers of the local offices of the Sabena airline and Air France, join
them at their table. They speak with French accents. Though one is Belgian and one French, Raju can detect no difference in their English. They are young men, Jaafar’s age. They are alone in Kampala, both unmarried. Neither intends to return to Europe until their employers demand it, until the situation under Amin becomes worse. They lament that their offices are always short of Ugandan shillings. They have to pay their overhead costs in local currency, but airline tickets are purchased in US dollars. The airlines are permitted legally to send foreign money to their head offices in Europe. The men both shake their heads and pause before stating the official rate of exchange, of which Raju is well aware: 7 shillings and 14 cents per dollar. Raju sits quietly, his eyes on his hand, which is resting on the table. He hears Jaafar offer to sell them shillings at the black market rate of 50 shillings per dollar. Readily, they agree.

On the drive home, Raju tries to recall who brought up the subject of currency first, the Belgian or the Frenchman? They brought it up together, in perfect unison, like singers performing a harmony. They must have discussed it earlier, Raju tells himself silently, turning to look at Jaafar’s profile. They must have planned to bring the subject up.

Jaafar takes the dollars to Nairobi, buys Kenyan shillings and then returns to Uganda, where he sells them. With the increasing demand for the ever-strengthening Kenyan shilling, Jaafar makes money, more and more money. The borders have become lax since the expulsion. But the amount of cash Jaafar regularly ferries would tempt even an honest customs agent, if one existed. Raju watches as Jaafar rips open the upholstery of his Renault and stuffs in bills. Then he sets off for the Tororo-Malaba border.

More than nine weeks have passed since Mumtaz and the children left for Britain. Mubinga has still not come through with his payment. Jaafar tells Raju it is time to go to London, to fetch Mumtaz and Karim and Shama and travel to Canada. Jaafar will come back to Uganda alone. Amir will remain behind. Raju’s sons do not discuss these plans with him. They inform him, politely, respectfully.

The moment Raju has feared for months arrives quietly. He stares out the window at the placid surface of Lake Victoria as the airplane lifts him higher, higher.

24

“Y
OU HAVE UGANDAN PASSPORTS,” THE CUSTOMS
agent at Heathrow Airport tells Jaafar and Raju. “We know you have been expelled and that you will try to stay in the United Kingdom.”

“We won’t stay,” Jaafar says.

“You can’t go back to Uganda.”

“But we can.” Jaafar shows him his re-entry permit, Raju’s re-entry permit.

“Why would you go back?”

“I am saying only that we can. We have visas for Canada. My father and I have come to take my wife and children to Canada. We fly out in three days.” Jaafar shows him their Canadian visas, the airplane tickets.

The customs agent shakes his head. He keeps his eyes on Jaafar, as though Raju is not there. “Our policy is to detain all Asian Ugandan passport holders trying to enter the United Kingdom.”

Raju sees Jaafar lower his eyes.

“We have allowed in tens of thousands of Asians from
Uganda.” The agent is speaking loudly and slowly. “Our resources are limited, sir.” Then in a lower voice: “We can’t accept every poor refugee who wants to come into our country.”

“For hundreds of years you walked into other people’s countries,” Raju says. The agent turns, and for the first time, looks at him. “My people’s countries.” Raju pushes his finger roughly into his own chest. “And took anything you wanted. Still,” he says, his body beginning to shake, “you don’t have enough?”

Mumtaz asks to meet with the commanding officer of the barracks, a tall ginger-haired man with a neatly trimmed mustache named Captain Jones. She tells him Jaafar and Raju have been detained. She asks him if he can advise her, help her.

“My husband and my father-in-law want nothing from this country,” she says. “They want to take their family to Canada. The government should be pleased. We will be one less Asian family.”

Jones nods, promises to do what he can.

The next day, he tells Mumtaz two BBC reporters have come to interview her about Jaafar and Raju. He tells her he called them and that she should speak to them.

While she is filmed, she explains to a young woman with a microphone why she could not travel to Canada ahead of her husband. She says that she and her children could not stay in Uganda with him because Idi Amin has threatened British Asians who remained past the deadline with unimaginable horrors. “My husband stayed only to collect some of our money. Idi Amin took everything we built for years and threw us out.
Why is Britain punishing my husband and my poor father-in-law? It’s cruel.” She cries. She is embarrassed and angry. Her tears come too easily these days. But the reporters look pleased and continue to film her.

Three hours later, Jones comes to her room and tells her that Jaafar and Raju are released and on their way to see her. “The reporters called the Home Office to arrange an interview with your husband. Within the hour, they let them go.”

She thanks him.

He smiles. “Sometimes,” he says, “all you need to do is shine a bright light on people. It is in the dark that we lose sight of our good sense.”

When he sees them, Raju pats Karim and Shama on their heads. They have grown. Karim needs his hair cut. Shama looks thinner in the face. Mumtaz looks tired. But when she talks, her voice is energized, her words crisp. “At Christmas, we were invited to a family’s house in the village near the barracks, Felbridge or Feldbridge. We ate dinner with them, so much meat, so many sweets. And they gave gifts to the children. The woman of the house, the mother, the wife, told Shama and Karim that Father Christmas doesn’t forget any children. When she said that I cried. It was humiliating, but my tears wouldn’t stop. It doesn’t matter. The children were happy. They didn’t notice I was crying.”

“Your welcome here was a little different from mine,” Jaafar says quietly.

Raju sees Mumtaz’s jaw tighten. He has watched the families, the few families that are still here at Hobbs Barracks. All
of them intact, husbands with wives, fathers with children. His young daughter-in-law has been alone with her small children for almost three months. “It was comfortable,” Raju says. “Detention at Heathrow. Clean, good food.” He looks at Jaafar. His son says nothing. He does not apologize for leaving Mumtaz alone for all this time. He does not tell her that he intends to return to Uganda. That after he takes them to Canada, he plans to go to Mbarara and collect the payment for the garage from Mubinga and then move to Kampala with Amir and make money.