Kololo Hill Page 5

  Jaya nodded but Mrs Goswami was oblivious. She turned to face Asha.

  ‘We lived on a small farm looking out over the grasslands. A few miles away, we had a dukan that sold everything, kitenge fabric, bicycle pumps, tinned fish: we sold it all, things you didn’t even know you needed. No competition. Lots of money to be made. That’s why we stayed. But our house was far away from the dukan, and by that time I had a baby to look after, my eldest, Dipesh. We lived with another family who were distant relatives of my husband, but they’d gone away for a few days and I was alone with the baby all day. Anyway, there’d been reports of animals getting over the fences of the neighbouring farms and attacking the livestock, so my husband bought a gun. We’d sit out on the veranda in the evenings, the baby dozing in my arms. Imagine that, look at the size of Dipesh now, he used to fit in my arms back then, barely fits through the door now. And my husband’s rifle always rested by his feet, always ready.’

  Asha couldn’t imagine such a solitary life. Jinja wasn’t as big as Kampala, but there were always people around that they could call on.

  ‘So he showed me how to use the gun, just in case,’ said Mrs Goswami. ‘But it was so heavy in my arms. The rifle butt left bruises where I held it against my shoulder. The gunfire rattled through me. Made the birds flee, they’d scatter across the sky.’ She waved her hand in the air. ‘I hated it. Hated it!’

  She sat forward in her chair. ‘And then one morning, when I was sweeping the veranda, I spotted a lioness, slinking through the grass. She looked straight at me, then moved towards the house.

  ‘Well, I was shaking by this time but I knew I couldn’t make any sudden movements. I pulled the rifle up slowly as the lioness moved closer to the chicken coop nearby and I slotted my finger against the trigger. You know, I remember my skin slipping against the steel. I couldn’t press it. And by now, the chickens were frantic, clucking and flapping.’ Mrs Goswami paused, relishing the look of surprise on Asha’s face.

  ‘But I was too late. The lioness sloped off. I watched her clutching two chicken carcasses between her teeth, leaving a trail of blood as she went. And that night – in those days I was too timid for my own good – when my husband came back, I told him that the lioness had been too fast, that there hadn’t been time to run and fetch the rifle. He’d simply nodded, too tired to do anything but sit down and eat his dinner.’

  Asha opened her mouth to speak but Mrs Goswami got there first.

  ‘And then a few days later, after I’d finally got the baby to settle for a nap one afternoon, I was sitting inside the house, looking out through the window. I could see three men approaching, armed with pangas. I remember the curve of the metal flashing white in the sun, that’s how I saw them from so far away, you see. They walked right up to the steps of the house, chatting amongst themselves. They even commented on how nice the wooden chairs were, how much they might have cost, as though they were picking out furniture in a shop. Imagine! I didn’t know what to do,’ she said. Squinting with one eye, she put her arm out straight as though it was a gun. ‘The rifle practice with my husband had always been from the top of the veranda pointing out across the grassland. I’d practised scaring off wild animals from afar, but never shooting at close range. Not at a group of armed men.’

  Asha put her teacup and saucer down.

  ‘I pulled out the rifle and called out through the mosquito screen. Told them I’d call the master if they didn’t stop. The men stopped talking and looked up towards the house. I knew they wouldn’t be able to see through the mesh of the mosquito screen because the house was dark inside. But still they climbed onto the first step of the stairs and one of the men shouted, “There’s no master here.” ’

  Jaya must have known what was coming next, but even she raised her head, waiting to hear the next part of the story.

  Mrs Goswami continued, ‘My hands were so sweaty I could barely hold the rifle by then. Still, I rushed to the door and pointed it at them. The gun was heavy but it was the fear that made my arms shake. I tried to steady myself as best I could. “The master will be back in a minute. Can you go now?” I was so stupid then. Imagine asking them! Politely requesting they go away when I’m pointing a gun at them. Now I would tell them to leave, gandas!’ Mrs Goswami slapped the armrest. ‘They stood on the stairs and looked at each other, then back at me. But they didn’t turn. The baby had begun to cry inside the house. I raised the gun and pulled the trigger, praying I’d aimed correctly. The bullet shot over the heads of the men and skimmed across the grass. The men stepped back, stunned, and one of them tripped on the bottom step.’ Mrs Goswami giggled, like a naughty girl who’d been caught eating sweets.

  Jaya leant forward.

  ‘Then I told them I’d use it again. And they moved faster, somewhere in between a run and a walk.’ Mrs Goswami chuckled. ‘The way they hurried away, trying to act like they weren’t scared. What do you think of that?’

  Asha looked Mrs Goswami in the eye, taking in the cool but triumphant look on the old woman’s face. Her brittle manner was her way of surviving, Asha could almost respect her for that. And Mrs Goswami had looked after herself, taken control, protected her baby. Asha thought of Pran’s lies, but the talk of the gun reminded her of the way the soldier had held the rifle over Pran’s head. Her heart pulled in different directions.

  ‘That’s why we shouldn’t worry. No matter how bad it seems, all this bakwas, this nonsense with Amin, it’ll pass too,’ said Mrs Goswami. ‘It’s hard now, but things will get better. They always do.’

  6

  Jaya

  Jaya placed a glass of papaya juice on the little table next to the folding bed in the storeroom.

  ‘You have better access to the snacks now, bwana,’ joked Motichand, slapping December on the back and eyeing up the steel containers that stored gathiya and sev mumbra, piled next to bags of grains. No one laughed.

  December smiled out of politeness. Jaya looked on as he put a book, his comb and some letters on the table, the light bringing out the traces of silver in his hair. The room was stuffy but there was little they could do with only a narrow window above the door.

  For decades, December had left his home outside the city at dawn each morning, worked all day and headed back to his house each night. But with more of Amin’s soldiers roaming the streets looking for people to pick on – or worse – it was now too dangerous to make the trips back and forth. And so he did what other house boys and girls now did, and stayed in the family home.

  If she could have, Jaya would have comforted December with a hand on his shoulder; instead, she settled for a kind smile. Motichand went off for a nap but Jaya remained in the doorway. ‘Did you hear from your family?’

  December sat down on the bed, arms flexed to either side of him. ‘I got news from my village a few days ago, they were trying to get out. But I haven’t heard from them since.’

  Jaya knew that Idi Amin had set his sights on entire tribes. Those like the Acholi – December’s tribe.

  ‘It’s difficult to get word out with the army interfering,’ said Jaya. ‘Try not to worry.’ December knew everything about her own family: the sound of Motichand’s voice, gruff and low, in the morning; the way Vijay liked to eat choparya when he thought no one was looking (rolled up with the sweet-sour chutney in the middle); the reason Pran had a scar the size of a matchstick on his right arm (an ambitious attempt to jump down from the tree in the yard as a child). Yet they knew so little about December’s family.

  She’d picked up everything she knew about them in snippets, a life compiled by patchwork. He didn’t talk about his family often. Jaya recalled a time, a year or so after she had arrived in Uganda, back when both of them could still run fast across the yard when it rained and when they both had luxurious heads of thick dark hair. He’d come to the house one morning beaming as he clutched a box of mandazi, the sweet globes of fried dough eaten with strong black tea in the traditional way, to celebrate the birth of his daughter, Aber. He�
�d talked once or twice about a woman, Mary, but he never mentioned her after that. Jaya asked him to bring Aber to the house one day, told him how she’d love to meet his daughter, but they’d never had the chance.

  ‘How can they do this?’ Jaya shook her head, shaking off the anger she felt at Idi Amin, his army, at all the people that allowed it to happen. ‘Picking on ordinary people who have done nothing wrong.’

  ‘This is the way of things. Obote picked off his rivals before, Amin’s picking off his rivals now,’ said December. ‘These men in power prey on people who are losing hope. People who think their lives will be different, that they’ll be given a little piece of that power themselves. Of course, it never happens. They’re lucky if they have a life to live at all.’

  ‘I wish they’d leave us all in peace,’ said Jaya.

  ‘I should have gone back north when I had the chance.’ December’s voice sounded unfamiliar, filled with uncertainty. He’d planned to go a few months back, leave for good so that he could keep Aber safe, even though it meant he’d have to leave his job with the family. He looked down at the storeroom floor. ‘They say they’re going through entire villages.’

  ‘It’s probably just a rumour,’ Jaya said.

  Later, as the sound of distant gunfire punctured the night air, the family ate dinner and tried to work out what to do. December smoked and sat in a dark corner of the yard where he wouldn’t be seen by the neighbours.

  ‘He can’t stay here forever,’ Pran whispered.

  ‘It’s not forever, beta,’ said Jaya.

  ‘We have to get him out,’ said Pran.

  ‘Out where?’ said Motichand, bundling another forkful of rice into his mouth.

  ‘I don’t know, but things don’t look like they’ll get better,’ said Pran. Amin had already got rid of the Langi and Acholi soldiers during his coup, and now there’d been stories about the Acholi men and boys upcountry. So many slaughtered that their blood had pooled in the red earth at the bottom of ditches. All that was left were women and girls.

  ‘You know how it is with these kara dictators, he’ll be overthrown like the others.’ Motichand belched and then sighed, looking pleased with himself. Jaya remembered the days after Amin’s coup, the elation that rang out across Kampala. But then the cheers and the drums stopped and all that was left was the broken cracks in the kerbs from the ferocious army tanks, Acholi and Langi faces disappearing from the streets.

  ‘It’s worse than before,’ said Pran. ‘And it affects us too, Papa.’

  Jaya put down the jug of chaas. ‘December’s looked after us all these years. It’s our turn to look after him now.’

  ‘But we need to be more careful. What if someone sees him?’ said Pran, shaking his head. Anyone could tell the army if they thought it would keep their own family safe.

  ‘We will take care, beta,’ said Jaya.

  ‘Perhaps things will die down soon,’ said Asha.

  Vijay took another rotli from the pile and folded the flat round in half on his plate. ‘Exactly. Let’s wait and see what happens.’

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ Pran looked at his younger brother. ‘This isn’t a game. What if the soldiers come to the house and find him?’

  ‘They wouldn’t come to our house without good reason,’ said Jaya. Of course, there was a risk, but they couldn’t leave him out there.

  Pran huffed. ‘They don’t need a reason.’

  ‘We will make sure no one sees him, beta.’

  ‘But Ba,’ said Pran, ‘it’s not safe for any of us.’

  ‘How many times? He is staying!’ Jaya slammed down her cup. ‘We’re helping him. There’s nothing else to be said.’

  Pran stared at her. Everyone’s eyes were on her.

  They had to help him. They owed him that much.

  *

  The afternoon was so warm it felt as if the air would burst open from the heat. Jaya shifted in her seat, trying to catch a whisper of breeze. She and Asha sat out on the veranda, each with a round steel sani in their laps, half filled with rice. Jaya flicked the rice from one side of the sani to the other, looking for small grit and stones and putting them aside. As far as house chores went, it was one of the few that she liked doing, along with getting a new bowl of rice out of the gunny sack in the storeroom. She took her time over that; she loved sinking her hand into the grains, the silky rice sucking her fingers in.

  Jaya checked in case the neighbours were out in their own yards, and though she could see no one around, she whispered. ‘I should take December some more water soon.’

  ‘Yes, it must get so hot in that room. I’ve been thinking,’ Asha turned her head towards Jaya, ‘do you think that there’s another way to help him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Jaya.

  ‘Hiding December. It’s not easy for him, cooped up in that storeroom. And . . .’ Asha paused, though she carried on moving the grains of rice across her sani.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, is it safe?’

  ‘We have no choice.’

  ‘But if the army find out, we could all be arrested.’ She looked like she was about to say something else but thought better of it. But Jaya could guess. Asha didn’t want to say it out loud, but they could all be taken away, tortured even.

  Jaya looked up. ‘What’s Pran been saying to you?’

  Asha’s eyes narrowed. ‘Nothing. We’ve not spoken . . . about any of this. But I was thinking about what he said at dinner. I know December’s been working here for a long time, but is it worth putting the family at risk for a house boy?’

  Jaya sighed. ‘We can’t throw him out on the street. Yes, he’s been with us a long time, but it’s a lot more than that. December helped us, in a lot of ways. He isn’t just another house boy, Asha.’

  ‘He helped you? With the house, you mean.’

  ‘You just have to trust me, Asha.’

  Asha put the sani down between them on the bench and shifted her body towards Jaya. ‘But what would happen if the soldiers came here?’

  ‘We would hide him. We agreed he could hide away well enough in the storeroom.’ Jaya’s voice was trembling now.

  ‘Look, I’m not trying to upset you, it’s just—’

  ‘Stop now, Asha.’

  ‘Perhaps you should talk to Pran yourself. He probably just wants to be sure you’ve thought this through, that’s all. Things have changed so much these past months; it must be a strain, I know, what with the army stopping us like that and everything, things have changed so much.’ Asha was rambling now, almost too fast for Jaya to understand.

  Jaya stood up, shoving her sani onto the bench behind her, the rice grains that she’d so meticulously separated now a jumbled mess. ‘You stupid girl. You are supposed to respect me, not question every decision I make in this house. My house.’

  Asha looked at her in shock.

  Why couldn’t the girl understand?

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Leave the rice, Asha.’ Jaya turned and walked away. ‘We have more important things to worry about.’

  *

  The sun watched over Jaya as she crossed the yard, carrying a bowl of posho and beans. Silence. No swoosh of the fugyo sweeping away the dust, no thwack of wet clothes being beaten against the washing board. She missed the sound of December’s voice as they talked through the day.

  Jaya knocked on the storeroom door. She heard the sigh and groan of the metal folding bed as December got up to let her in, as though it too was carrying the weight of his worries. Fat bags of lentils and chapati flour lay slumped in corners, three folded newspapers and a book were neatly piled on one of the nearby shelves.

  Jaya had hoped that the sunshine-yellow posho might cheer him, a taste of home, but it was clear that she didn’t know what she was doing; up until a few weeks ago she’d never made it before, never even tasted the food that was eaten all over Uganda. She’d imagined him, each day after she left the storeroom, frowning as he jabbed at the po
orly cooked cornmeal with a spoon and lifted up the lumpy mass like a giant lollipop. But today December didn’t even look at it; instead he eked the corners of his mouth into a smile and set it down on a shelf. The soft fold where his head and neck met deepened.

  ‘Perhaps you can eat it later,’ said Jaya, standing in the doorway. ‘You need to keep your strength up.’

  ‘I thought I’d be here, working in this house, until my body gave up, or until the day I died. It looks like that will come true sooner than I thought.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that.’ She turned towards him, her tone tender. ‘We’ll get you out.’

  ‘I just wish I knew that Aber was all right,’ he said. His daughter must be in her teens by now, eighteen or nineteen. Still there’d been no news. ‘I should have got her out of the country somehow.’

  ‘None of us could have known how bad things would get,’ said Jaya.

  ‘At least she was blessed enough to be born a girl, so they will spare her,’ he said.

  But even as Jaya nodded, she remembered the stories she’d heard in hushed whispers outside the temple, how the soldiers had gone to the campus at Makerere University and picked out women. That one glimmer of hope that for once it might have been a blessing to be born female disappeared.

  Jaya looked around the room, at the bowl of magnolia and frangipani flowers that had been placed in the corner to hide the musty smell. The edges of the petals were already frayed and curled, wilting in the heat.

  ‘Try to think of good things,’ she said, telling herself the same.

  ‘Good things.’ December mustered a smile.

  ‘I’d better get back to the cooking,’ she said. A lizard flickered into the shadows as she closed the door behind her.

  *

  She hurried to the kitchen, taking out a knife to chop the bhinda then piling the chunks of okra into a bowl. The more she cut, the more the anger swelled inside her chest. How dare Amin do this to innocent people. Why should December suffer like this? And all the while, Pran and Asha were questioning why they needed to protect him. It must seem odd to them, she knew that, but she had her reasons.