Kololo Hill Page 13

  Mrs Goswami stared at the space where Grace had been standing for a long while, then turned back to her guests. ‘I don’t know . . . what do I say to her?’

  ‘The poor girl. She’s been through so much,’ said Jaya. ‘Don’t take it to heart.’ How could men do these things? She stared at the floor, searching for some more words of comfort, but what was left to say? And Jaya couldn’t shake the words from her mind, the sliver of truth within them. People wouldn’t hate you so much they want you gone.

  They sat in silence for a while; no mundane news to share, no festivals or weddings to plan for, no good news to cheer them. After finishing their chai, they listed all the families they knew that had left for India, Pakistan, England, Canada, Australia, the United States, Kenya and Tanzania, some even going to places like Sweden and Germany.

  ‘And how are you all coping?’ Mrs Goswami said. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t stay longer after the funeral.’

  ‘We are keeping busy, at least,’ said Jaya, thinking of Pran, how angry he’d been in the car.

  ‘And Motichandbhai, so close to leaving and going back to India,’ Mrs Goswami said, her voice mournful. ‘It feels like yesterday that he first arrived in Uganda.’ They’d known each other for decades. How lonely Jaya had been when she’d first arrived in Kampala, waiting for Motichand to come home each night, counting the days until they’d be able to go to temple. Apart from Motichand’s piecemeal efforts and support from December, Mrs Goswami was the only person who’d tried to help Jaya settle into life in Kampala in the early years. She’d helped her to understand how to adjust to a life in this unfamiliar country, how to haggle down prices for matoke and buteta, teaching her useful Swahili phrases to use when speaking to house boys and house girls, although Jaya ignored Mrs Goswami’s stronger rebukes (‘Make sure my washing’s clean or I’ll throw you into the Nile and scrub you raw myself’). Mrs Goswami had shown her the way. Who would show her now?

  ‘Here, my husband’s cousin moved to Birmingham years ago. This is her address.’ Mrs Goswami went over to a drawer, leaning on her walking stick as she went, and thrust a piece of paper into Jaya’s hand. ‘When we’re settled, I’ll write to them from Canada and let them know my address. You do the same, Jayaben, when you have your own house.’ Jaya admired her friend’s optimism, that she’d have her own home in England and that they’d somehow manage to stay in touch through their letters. ‘And you can come visit me in Canada one day.’

  Jaya nodded her head and hugged Mrs Goswami goodbye, even though she already knew they’d never see each other again.

  *

  Evening in Kampala. No telltale signs, no slices of light under doors or window shutters; no murmuring from radios; no crackling from the TV or record players playing out across the streets and weaving through the trees, across walls and through open windows; no yelling for children to come indoors after roaming the streets all day; no laughter laced with whisky or beer; no scent of roasting rotlis carrying across the breeze. Nothing. Instead, the sound of gunfire smothered the sound of the crickets.

  Screams if the victims were lucky enough to be alive, silence if they weren’t.

  Jaya finished lighting the last of the divas, usually saved for celebrations, weddings or Divari, in the sitting room. She checked for a third time that the tape around the windows was secure (no need to worry about the damage it might do to the plasterwork when she’d be leaving soon), making sure that no cracks of light could escape and betray them to soldiers on the hunt.

  None of them could focus. Asha picked up her chai, forgot to take a sip and put it down again. Pran, lost in thought, stared out into the darkness. Vijay had escaped to his bedroom, his record player on low. What would Motichand have been doing now? Slurping his tea, telling a funny story.

  Tonight, the gunfire outside was louder, the shouts and screams ringing through the air, loud enough that they could make out some of the words: ‘Hapana! ’, ‘Please, no!’, ‘Stand over there now!’ On and on it went, the soldiers making sure they got their riches before the government seized it.

  Jaya left the others and went to check on December, hurrying in the darkness to the storeroom, clutching a copy of the Ugandan Argus for him to read.

  ‘Have you heard any more?’ said December, the bed creaking underneath him. ‘Can you go to England together now?’

  Jaya shook her head. They’d hoped that they might let Pran go to England so that he wouldn’t be separated from all of his family. But the stories from those who’d already left confirmed that only people with British passports would be allowed in. She explained that Pran would try his luck in India as a stateless refugee instead. She didn’t tell December that Pran was still talking about staying behind. It sounded so ridiculous.

  ‘The British still pull the strings. We shouldn’t be surprised,’ said December.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They were happy to support Amin into power. Obote was an inconvenience, they hated his policies.’

  ‘They must have realized their mistake by now,’ said Jaya.

  December’s voice sounded strange, tinged with anger. ‘They were the ones who invited him for tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, inflating his ego.’

  ‘I don’t know about all that, but I know that he’s the man who has caused us all so much hurt,’ said Jaya, thinking of Motichand. Her grief weighed heavy in her throat. She still expected to hear him call out for her any moment, but instead silence smothered her.

  ‘What a life we find ourselves in,’ December whispered, staring at her. ‘But I don’t deserve your help.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that, please.’

  December sighed. ‘You might not be so willing to let me stay if you knew what I did.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘For years, I didn’t see Aber.’

  ‘But you had to stay here and work. It wasn’t your fault that you had to be apart.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ he said. ‘I looked after her and her mother for a while when Aber was a baby, sending them money like I told you. But they were so far away. I wanted to go out and have fun with my friends. All I could see were the pretty girls around me.’

  Jaya felt her cheeks flush. These weren’t the kind of things they usually spoke about.

  December continued, ‘And so, I stopped going back to see Aber. The money stopped too.’

  ‘When was this?’ Jaya thought back to that time, remembering the way December used to split the wages she gave him into two, folding one set of notes around the other, half to send back home, half for himself. When had he stopped doing that? She had been too wrapped up in her own family to notice.

  ‘A few years after Aber was born.’

  Jaya looked at his face, full of sorrow. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I went back home, about eight years ago, to try and make it right. I knew I’d been stupid. I tried to get in touch with her again, but she wouldn’t see me. Her mother kept her away. But I went back, every chance I got. Finally, Aber agreed to see me.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘Would you tell people that you’d abandoned your own family?’

  She couldn’t imagine leaving Pran and Vijay, not talking to them for years. She wouldn’t be able to trust anyone else to raise her children. ‘But you are talking to her again now?’

  ‘God gave me a second chance. It took a long time before Aber could forgive me. Her mother will never forgive me.’

  Jaya looked at him. Her life was so different to December’s, separated from his loved ones, working long hours. Who was she to judge? ‘People make mistakes. And you are trying to make up for it now.’ He’d saved her life so that she could have her own children. She couldn’t ignore that. She thought of the people at temple, people like Mrs Goswami. They’d say that December was in danger now because of those bad deeds, paying for it all, God had chosen to punish him. But no, she would look at it another way. God had put him in this house so that he coul
d help them all these years, and make her feel less alone. And now she could help him.

  ‘I’m going to leave tomorrow.’

  ‘Be strong, you can’t go on your own. It’s not safe. Just get some rest and you’ll feel differently in the morning.’ She held her chundri in place as she turned to leave. She hesitated. Still facing the door, she said, ‘I know it’s difficult. But if you love Aber, you owe it to her to stay safe to help her. Please, December.’

  ‘Adenya,’ he said softly.

  Jaya turned towards him, looking into his eyes.

  ‘Call me Adenya. Only family would help me like this.’

  In a hushed voice Jaya said, ‘Adenya.’

  *

  In that moment, as she closed the door of the storeroom behind her, the gunfire ringing in the air, Jaya knew she was ready to leave, whatever England might hold. Even if her family would be scattered across the world, at least she knew they’d all be safe. Alive.

  Some people talked about coming back one day; they hadn’t even left yet but already they talked about coming back to Uganda. But Jaya was old enough to know that it would take many years for the pain to go away, if it ever did. Years she didn’t have.

  She’d had enough. She never wanted to see this house again, never wanted to feel that prickle of fear running through her muscles that stayed with her from the moment she woke up to the second she fell asleep, never wanted to be told what to do by strangers, never wanted to have the things she’d worked hard for taken away from her, never again wanted the threat of being parted from those that she loved the most.

  No, in that moment, Jaya was ready to leave.

  13

  Vijay

  It was the first time Vijay had been back to the dukan since Papa died. He opened the door, and the heavy, stale air that had been trapped inside for over a week escaped into the street. Pran followed behind and went to check if there was anything worth taking from the storeroom.

  Vijay walked over to the counter, remembering how he’d sat on top of it when he visited as a child, his legs dangling in the air, while Papa joked: ‘Don’t sit there too long, a customer might decide to buy you and take you home with their ENO salts!’

  There wasn’t much to do; they couldn’t take the stock with them, but they needed to check that they hadn’t left anything important behind. Anything important apart from the dukan, the stock and the money, of course. He took a step towards the space where he’d last seen Papa alive, on the floor behind the counter. He pulled out one of the heavy ledger books and turned the musty pages. Here was Papa’s scrawled handwriting, surrounded by islands of white space where he’d forgotten to write things down. For Papa, the books were something that showed you were a proper businessman; it didn’t much matter if you actually filled them in or if the accounts made sense. Later pages were filled with Pran’s terse, neat handwriting; not a single credit for a pleading customer in sight.

  He looked out of the window into the quiet street, remembering Motichand, up late most mornings, arriving like a celebrity, waving at fellow dukanwara across the street, handing out bottles of pop to the customers’ children.

  Who would the government give the dukan to now? Or worse still, which looters would demolish it first? At businesses down the street, floors were covered with footprints in the scattered flour, glossy sauces spilt like blood, tin cans that had fallen off the shelves and rolled to the other side of the shop, as though they too were trying to get away.

  Vijay leant against the counter. Who would remember them once they’d gone? At school, Vijay had taken in all the bookshelves filled with Africa’s history. But it was the history of the English and Germans and French in Africa – the shelves were full: no space for Indians, nor Africans. How could you disappear from history books you’d never been inside in the first place? And no one had ever bothered to write it down on paper; their history had been told by one person to another, words changed, parts left out, or added. What did it matter now anyway? Their history in Uganda was over. Who would remember this dukan or Papa?

  ‘Ready?’ said Pran, coming out of the back room with a small cardboard box. ‘There’s not much worth keeping.’

  Vijay nodded, taking one of the ledgers, a tiny memento of Papa. Before he closed the front door for the final time, he looked across the dukan, Papa’s voice echoing in his ears, the place behind the counter where he’d once stood now empty.

  14

  Asha

  ‘At least he’s home now,’ said Asha.

  ‘He’s sleeping. All Naseem wants to do is sleep,’ said Razia, staring at the floor.

  ‘Rest is good,’ said Pran. They were visiting Razia and Naseem, who’d finally made it home after his disappearance.

  ‘Here, let me put this away.’ Asha took the bowl of mogo and samosa that she and Jaya had made for the family to the kitchen. The house was silent; she didn’t ask where the children and their grandparents were. Probably best that Naseem had some peace.

  When Asha came back into the sitting room, Razia was telling Pran what happened. ‘We kept going back. We went every single day to ask the army where he was but they wouldn’t tell us. Then yesterday, an army truck just left him at the side of our road. Naseem just had this strange look on his face, wouldn’t say anything at first.’ She brought her hand to her mouth. ‘We’ve been trying to piece it all together.’

  ‘And now?’ said Pran, the concern on his face clear to see.

  ‘They stopped him in his car, but we knew that already, that’s how we knew he’d been taken,’ said Razia. ‘They told him they were arresting him and grabbed him. Naseem kept talking about the cell they kept him in. It was dark, there were dozens of other prisoners. He talked about the water at his feet, the stench.’

  ‘Oh, Razia,’ said Asha. She’d heard the rumours of the squalid conditions in which prisoners were kept, but she didn’t know the details. ‘How is he now?’

  ‘You should see him, he can’t stand up straight.’ Razia’s voice cracked. ‘His hands . . . his legs . . .’ She didn’t go on. She didn’t need to. The horror of what they’d done to him was written on her face.

  ‘And do you know why they took him?’ said Asha, putting her hand on Razia’s.

  ‘We heard they found his contacts in the government.’ Razia couldn’t look at them. ‘Their bodies, I mean.’

  Pran gave Asha a look, warning her that it was best not to pry further. There was no need. The contacts must have done something to upset Amin, taking their own cut most likely. They’d paid the price for it.

  ‘Naseem?’ Razia called out. In the far corner of the vast room, Naseem appeared swathed in a thick blanket, head bowed. His steps were small and awkward, his broad frame shrunken. ‘I’d better go and check on him.’ She got up, talking to him in a tender tone, the way she usually spoke to her youngest child.

  Asha whispered to Pran, ‘Do you understand now why you can’t even think about staying behind?’

  ‘It’s not the same,’ said Pran. They watched as Razia led Naseem back to the bedroom.

  Asha leant forward. ‘Would you really do that to me? Did you see the look on poor Razia’s face?’ Anger burned in Asha’s veins so strongly Naseem could have been her own husband. How dare they treat people like that?

  ‘What’s happened to Naseem is terrible. But I’ve never got involved with the government like that.’

  ‘They don’t care. They could take you away merely for driving your car too fast. Or too slow. For anything at all. I couldn’t bear it. If they did that to you . . .’ Asha was surprised by the tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

  ‘They wouldn’t.’ But his voice betrayed him. Asha could see Naseem’s ordeal weighed heavily on him.

  ‘You’re really going to stay here alone? There’d be no one left to help you if you got into trouble.’

  Pran looked down at his hands. ‘I can’t believe what they’ve done to Naseem.’ Had he finally admitted defeat?

  ‘I can’t bel
ieve that he even came back. Not when you think what happened to the others.’ The bodies in the Nile flashed into Asha’s head, but there was no point trying to work out the logic of Idi Amin and his army.

  ‘At least their family can go to India together now,’ said Pran.

  ‘Pranbhai!’ Razia’s panicked voice carried across the house.

  Pran stood up. ‘I think she’s out front.’ Asha followed him towards the door.

  They heard the fire before they saw it, crackling in the metal sigri that the watchmen used to keep warm at night. Naseem was throwing something in.

  Razia’s hands were red. She tried to stop him. ‘Naseem!’

  As they stepped closer, smoke filling the air, they saw that he was burning money.

  Pran tried to pull Naseem back, but though he flinched, it was as though he was made of lead. He carried on flinging piles of notes into the flames, ash floating in the air like black moths.

  ‘Stop it!’ Razia cried out. ‘We could have given it to the servants at least!’

  ‘Why should anyone else have what we worked so hard for?’ said Naseem. ‘Besides, it’s only paper. It has no value for us Asians any more, does it? It can’t keep us safe.’

  ‘Naseem, chaal, come away,’ Pran said, putting his hand on his friend’s arm. ‘We shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves.’

  Asha looked around; luckily no one else was nearby to see the money. Many neighbours had already packed up and gone, with the expulsion deadline only three weeks away.

  ‘Please stop,’ said Razia, tears running down her face, clinging to her husband.

  But Naseem carried on, flames reflecting in his eyes as though they too were on fire.

  *

  Later that week, Asha was hurrying back from the storeroom when she saw a movement in the corner of the yard. She stopped. A chill travelled up her neck despite the warm evening air.

  A figure was crouching on the ground, digging.

  A soldier? She gasped so loudly that the figure turned around.

  Moonlight revealed their face. Pran.