Kololo Hill Page 10

  ‘No chicken?’ he said, still prancing around with the boys.

  ‘No chicken,’ Jaya said quietly.

  ‘Sit with me,’ said Motichand, after he’d washed his hands. Pran sat to one side, Vijay to the other, each unwrapping sweets and stuffing them into their mouths.

  ‘They must go to bed soon,’ said Jaya.

  ‘They have their whole lives to sleep.’ Motichand burped. ‘You too, Jaya, sit with me.’

  Jaya sat down. December finished his work in the kitchen and called out, ‘Goodbye, I will see you tomorrow.’

  But Jaya was the only one who noticed, nodding as he slipped away into the night.

  Now, in the evening light, Jaya sat down on her bed. She thought ahead to another day waiting at the High Commission, wondering how she’d be able to say goodbye to all those memories, the life, the good and the bad, that she’d lived for so many years.

  *

  The next day, they left the house before sunrise. They took their places in the line again. As Vijay and Pran unwrapped and ate the paratha she’d made for breakfast, she passed the time watching people go by. A woman with a baby swaddled in kitenge fabric across her back, followed by another who walked as regally as a queen, balancing a basket on her head without once looking down. Jaya knew she’d have to leave these sights behind.

  At five o’clock, woozy from the heat, they were finally told to go inside. The interior of the High Commission was pristine, with white walls and a pale-grey tiled floor. The only colour in the room came from the Union Jack, hanging forlornly in ripples of red, white and navy. The ceiling fans churned hot air over the people waiting to speak to officials in the cubicles. A mere handful of people were on hand to deal with all these crowds.

  Another hour passed, and one of the officials called out to say that unfortunately the office would be closing and they’d have to come back tomorrow. Murmurs of confusion turned into louder grumbling.

  ‘They have to be joking?’ Pran said. Motichand sighed and turned towards the door.

  Asha walked up to the cubicle, peering through the window at a young man with a comb-over. ‘You expect us to come back. We’ve had two days of this.’

  ‘Asha.’ Pran looked uncomfortable. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Revah deh. I’m fed up of other people deciding what we can and can’t do,’ Asha whispered in Gujarati.

  The guard who stood near the flag eyed Asha. ‘Your demands won’t work here. The days of you wahindis clicking your fingers are gone.’

  Asha ignored him and focused on the official, oblivious to the stares of the people in the queue. Causing a scene with no thought for anyone else.

  ‘Let them wait, Jacob.’ At the next cubicle, an older white man with a fuzz of red hair peered over the top of his glasses. ‘I’ll see them in a moment.’

  ‘Next time leave these things to me, Asha,’ said Pran.

  ‘It worked, didn’t it?’ Asha said. For once, Jaya was grateful for Asha’s temper.

  The man with the glasses mopped his brow. ‘Could I have your papers please?’ The soft Swahili words conflicted with his stiff English accent.

  Pran passed over the passports but he responded in English. ‘Good afternoon.’ It was one of the few phrases Jaya understood. He said something else about the papers that Jaya didn’t understand.

  The man looked up, surprised by Pran’s shift in language, but he continued in a prickly Swahili. ‘So you all have British passports?’

  ‘No, bwana.’ Pran switched to Swahili, knuckles tense as he gripped the edge of the counter.

  ‘Why did he switch back to Swahili?’ Jaya murmured.

  ‘He’s trying to suggest Pran can’t speak English properly,’ Asha whispered. ‘We were taught it for years.’

  ‘So.’ The man lit a cigarette.

  ‘So?’ said Pran.

  ‘Only some of you have British passports?’

  No wonder there was such a long queue outside if the officials took this long to work out basic facts. Surely it was clear from the passports?

  ‘Yes, but we’re a family so we want to stay together,’ Pran said.

  ‘Now you must know, the British government can only admit those with suitable passports.’ He showed the passports to Pran, in case he’d forgotten what they’d looked like in the few seconds since he’d handed them over. The little hairs on the man’s lower arms quivered as he shifted in his seat. ‘Your father would need to go to India. And you have a Ugandan passport, so you’d need to—’

  ‘We want to stay together,’ said Pran.

  ‘As a family.’ Vijay leant forward.

  ‘My father and I need to look after the others,’ said Pran. Vijay’s brow furrowed, annoyed at the implication that he couldn’t look after anyone.

  ‘There is nothing I can do. The rules are clear. You don’t have the correct paperwork to comply with—’

  Pran moved closer to the counter. ‘They’re taking everything from us, can’t you see that?’

  Motichand tried to pull him back. ‘Pran.’

  Anxiety flared in Jaya’s chest. It was all falling apart, all of it.

  ‘I realize this is very upsetting.’ The man glanced towards the guard behind them. ‘But you’re not the first family—’

  ‘The first family you’ve split up?’ Pran stared at the man as he made a big show of shuffling the papers.

  Jaya placed her hand on his arm. If they annoyed the official, it might mean that none of them would be allowed into England. ‘Beta, let him do his job.’ She took a long breath, trying to calm herself, hoping it would somehow settle Pran.

  By the time the official had processed Jaya, Asha and Vijay’s passports and they’d come outside, it was growing dark.

  ‘If England doesn’t want me then I don’t want England,’ said Motichand, his voice breathless. ‘But I can’t just let you go alone.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Jaya climbed into the car. The colour in his cheeks had faded.

  Motichand sucked hard at the air. He mopped his upper lip with his handkerchief.

  ‘You need to rest, Papa, it’s been a long day.’ Pran stared through the windscreen, out into the dark street. ‘We’ll have to try to get you to England somehow.’

  ‘You’ve seen the reports,’ said Asha. They’re sending people back to the countries that issued their passports.’

  He turned to face her. ‘But don’t you see? Even if I leave, they can’t send me back here.’ A bitter current ran through Pran’s laugh. ‘Uganda doesn’t want me either.’

  *

  Later that evening, Jaya sat at the table in the corner of the bedroom, slowly taking the pins from her bun, letting the hair fall loose across her shoulders. A beetle scuttled across the floor by her feet and escaped through a crack in the wall, out into the night.

  How could this have happened? The fear she’d felt when she left India for Uganda came back to her now.

  Back then, many people had already moved away from the small Gujarati villages to bigger cities, to Mumbai or Amdavad, where they could make a better living. Motichand had decided to go even further afield, bewitched by the tales of riches that others had made in East Africa, running dukans, factories, plantations. He told her he wanted to have a business, to buy a new house and drive a brand-new car, a Rolls-Royce like the local maharaja drove around in. Jaya understood his desire for money and for security, never having to worry about droughts or hunger, but why make huge sacrifices, leaving family behind, to go to a land so different to their own?

  They’d only been married a few weeks when Motichand set off on his journey. He left before dawn. He’d dropped to his mother’s feet and she cried as she pulled him back up in an embrace. She told him to be careful, superstitious about defying the taboo of the kara pani that could wash away his caste. He got on Laljibhai’s bullock cart, saying goodbye to Jaya with a smile, a wave and an ‘I’ll send for you soon.’ She watched as he disappeared into the darkness along the road to the port.

&nb
sp; They waited for Motichand to get in touch. Word was sent via other people’s letters, those who had made the same journey as Motichand and had settled in Uganda already. His first letter consisted of a few lines, telling them that he’d arrived in Mombasa. Later, another airmail from him said he’d made it to the Ugandan border. Other specifics, names and towns and cities, were absent, and Jaya started to wonder how she could be certain that any of it was true. How could they know? An entire country. They were separated from Motichand by a mass of water, and not just any water, but the kara pani. How did they know, with the hundreds of miles that lay between them, that the story hadn’t got mixed up, that the letters from acquaintances in Uganda weren’t talking about someone else? After all, there was an added complication. Motichand no longer carried his family name, ‘Motichand Meghji’. After the end of the relaxed immigration rules of the British – desperate for reliable Indian men to help them build the Kenyan-Ugandan railway – they tightened up the law. New arrivals from India had to rely on sponsorship from an already-established family member. And if there were no relatives in Uganda, the ever resourceful Gujaratis found ways to create new ones.

  ‘Two husbands for the price of one, Jaya!’ Motichand had told her. He changed his name from Motichand Meghji to Motichand Zaverchand, taking the name of an older man he’d never met before. This Zaverchandbhai had already set up his business in Uganda and agreed to ‘give’ Motichand his name, in return for the young man’s help in his dukan.

  There was no word from Motichand for ages. Jaya’s usually amenable mother-in-law had been getting angry with her for no apparent reason other than the fact that Jaya was in her house and her son was not. Many weeks after Motichand had left India, he finally sent word again. He told them that he’d saved plenty of money, enough to take part-ownership in a business. It would only be a matter of months before he could branch out on his own and she could join him in Uganda.

  And so Jaya prepared for her own journey. She’d never seen the sea before. She imagined that it was as black as the bottom of a well, a ferocious body of water, an angrier version of the spindly little river in her own village.

  One of Jaya’s distant relatives, Vidhyaben, and her husband were also making the journey to Uganda and they’d agreed to collect her from the village on their way to Porbandar. The breeze picked up as they approached the port town, the salt sea air crackling on her lips. The kara pani was nothing like Jaya had imagined. There was no sign of black; it was pale blue, like one of her blue cotton saris that had been washed in the river too many times, with ribbons of colour along it: turquoise, emerald, mud-brown in parts, like the earth.

  The steamship was bigger than any house, any building, in fact, that she’d ever seen. The pointed tip gave it a proud, haughty look and the sides were dotted with little windows, which she’d been told were for the first- and second-class passengers. The water brushed against the side of the steamer, teasing, playful, frothy rolls of water, which reminded her of boiling chai in a pot.

  She forced herself to step onto the boat. How could it possibly stay afloat? How could wood and metal be the only thing that separated them from all that water? They were shown below deck, to the belly of the ship. The ceiling was as low as those in the house she’d left behind. She could see no windows; the only light came from the stairwell, making shadows in corners. The tight, hot air filled her throat.

  The women and children were separated from the men in different sections of the steamer. Jaya laid out the shawl that she would sleep on next to Vidhyaben and settled her things. After a few moments, the boat began to judder and rumble. Everyone hurried back onto deck.

  She watched Porbandar recede into the distance, fishing boats and harbour shacks getting smaller and smaller until they looked like children’s toys. The way that the light hit the water, sea became sky, sky became sea, swallowing her whole, drowning in blue.

  ‘Can’t go back now, heh, Jayaben?’ Vidhyaben nudged her arm, her fingers sticky on Jaya’s skin. They reminded her of her husband, a man she’d only known for a short time, waiting for her on the other side of the ocean, in a country she’d never seen before.

  Jaya felt that same dread now; from the top of her throat to the pit of her stomach, she felt it all again. She put her comb on the bedroom table and looked out into the night, but her thoughts were disturbed by the distant crackle of gunfire.

  As she oiled her hair, Motichand walked in and sank down on his bed.

  ‘I really thought they might let us all go to England, Jaya. How stupid I was.’

  She could see him in the reflection of the mirror. ‘What will we do now?’

  ‘We can’t go to India together, they won’t let you in either.’ He propped up one of his legs, rubbing his chubby foot with his hand. ‘I will have to go to India with Pran, work out a way for us all to be together.’

  ‘As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.’ She ran the comb through her hair; the coconut oil made it shimmer silver in the lamplight.

  He shook his head, face full of sorrow. ‘They’ll split us apart, Jaya, and there’s nothing I can do.’

  She went over and sat opposite him on her own bed. The scent of sweet-spicy betel nut lingered, his lips pale pink from the paan he’d eaten earlier. They’d sometimes sat the same way when they were younger, facing each other as they got ready for bed.

  ‘How much more are we supposed to take?’ said Motichand. Jaya didn’t have the words for him. She’d seen that look on his face only once before, when the children were young and he’d received a telegram telling him his mother had died back in India. He’d kept going all day, making arrangements for a small memorial service for her, even smiling as he told Pran and Vijay stories of the many times his Ba had told him off as a child. The children were confused about the death, they couldn’t understand how a grandmother they’d never met could die in a far-off land. Motichand carried on trying to make them laugh, telling Jaya he was fine and didn’t need to rest, that the children were a welcome distraction. He played the role expected of him, to be jovial at all times. It was only later, after they’d both gone to bed, that Jaya heard him across the room, softly sobbing. The following morning, she’d gone to him as he buttoned his shirt and she pretended that he had an eyelash on his cheek. She stroked his face, then pulled him towards her. Though he was almost twice her height, he crumpled in her arms like a child. They held each other until she was no longer sure which tears were his, and which were hers.

  ‘I don’t know what to do.’ Motichand shifted on the bed now. His voice, usually so cheery, sounded empty. He was the one who usually buoyed her; he looked on the bright side, even when there was no light ahead.

  ‘We will be all right,’ she said, swallowing down the uncertainty she felt. ‘I’ll be with Vijay and Asha, you’ll have Pran. The main thing is that we get out of here alive.’

  ‘And what then? I haven’t been back to India in thirty years.’

  ‘Thirty-five.’

  ‘Thirty-five years. And I’m supposed to start again? At my age?’

  ‘But you wanted to go back?’ She tried to keep her tone light, but she knew what he meant. Over the years, Jaya had pored over pictures of India in the newspapers. Behind the well-known faces in power – Gandhiji, Nehru, Jinnah, smiling or solemn – were the ordinary people, standing aside and looking on from the corners of the photographs, their features blurred, broken by cracks in the film or by the wrinkles in the paper breaking up black ink. The women in the pictures looked like Jaya, they dressed like her in saris, wore small, round chandlas between their eyebrows and wrapped their hair in tight buns just like her. But Jaya wasn’t like them. The people who’d crossed the black water to Africa were in a whole new caste of their own, with their own language, their own food, their own ways of life. ‘You will have Pran,’ she said. ‘You know he’ll work hard like a real Indian countryman.’

  ‘He will work hard, yes. But he knows nothing about Indian business,’ said Motichand. �
��They do things differently there.’

  ‘You’ll both get by. You speak the language, we have family who’ll help.’ Jaya tried to reassure him, reassure herself, even as she remembered Mrs Goswami, who had visited India a few years back. She’d complained to Jaya that nothing was the same: she’d got sick, the food tasted different, the people she knew had grown up, moved away, died – in some cases, all three.

  ‘I was a tourist in my own country. Imagine!’ she’d said. Even the way she spoke stood out; the words had changed, modernized over the years, while the Gujarati she spoke in Uganda remained the same, frozen in time. They teased Mrs Goswami, told her that she sounded like the elders of the village, long gone now, an echo of a forgotten past.

  ‘And we don’t know if we’ll be able to get you to India. All these passports. What was the point, Jaya?’

  ‘So that we could be safe. So that if they tried to throw us out, we would be safe.’ Passports were supposed to give them some options, their fates written onto paper.

  ‘We’ve only got a few weeks left before the deadline is up. There’s still so much to think about.’ Motichand rubbed between his eyebrows and sighed.

  She watched him, taken aback by his despair. ‘We will find a way,’ she whispered. ‘God will look after us.’

  Motichand eased himself up from the bed, smiling as he moved towards her. He took a strand of her hair, brushing his thumb across the tips, the way he’d done when they’d first married. ‘Perhaps, Jaya. Perhaps.’ He walked over to the light switch and turned it off, leaving nothing but the night.

  11

  Vijay

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’ Vijay walked into the flat and greeted John. ‘There were some soldiers hanging around on the street. Had to wait until they’d gone.’

  ‘Don’t worry, come in. Steven had to go out, he said he’ll come and see you before you go.’

  They’d been friends since their schooldays, after the Asians-only rule was relaxed at Vijay’s school and John had been one of the first black Ugandans to join. The flat was owned by Steven, a friend they’d both met on a night out. Steven was American, an ex-Peace Corps volunteer who’d fallen in love with Uganda and its beautiful women. He’d stayed on to live with his local girlfriend after most other foreigners had left, scared off by the political tension. It was too dangerous for Ugandans like John to be seen with Asians, the lines of separation carved even stronger than before, so Steven had suggested they meet at his place.