Kololo Hill Page 8

  ‘Travel?’ Pran paused. ‘So you could have been an air hostess?’

  Asha gave him a sharp look. She was capable of far more.

  ‘No, I wanted to work in government.’ Her words firm, expecting him to laugh at her, ready for another argument. ‘A diplomat, even.’

  ‘In politics? Wow, you’d be a force to reckon with.’ He stroked her cheek. ‘Though you’d probably have to keep that temper under wraps.’

  She tugged the front of his hair playfully. ‘You’ll see that temper again in a moment if you’re not careful.’

  He pulled her close and as he unwrapped her from her sari, all she could think about was his kisses falling like petals on her skin, his hands along her spine, her thighs tight around his.

  *

  A few weeks passed. One night, Asha joined the others in the sitting room after dinner. ‘Vijay’s gone to his room?’

  ‘He wanted to get away from all this racket,’ said Jaya. The new TV set buzzed with music while Motichand chatted with his friend in Mbale on the telephone.

  ‘It happened at the wedding, apparently,’ said Motichand, voice booming so loud his friend could probably hear him all the way over in Mbale without the aid of the phone.

  ‘No, it was an engagement,’ Jaya told him.

  ‘An engagement. It was an engagement. And it happened in Rasangpur—’

  ‘Rajkot,’ said Jaya.

  Motichand finally finished his conversation, then picked up his chai. The surface rippled as he blew across it.

  Asha looked over at Pran, who sat in the armchair browsing a newspaper. Her heart filled with relief again, glad they’d reconciled.

  ‘Everyone in Mbale is well? Premchandbhai is back on his feet?’ said Jaya.

  Motichand poured his tea into the saucer and slurped from it.

  ‘Listen.’ Pran stood and turned the volume up on the TV.

  Idi Amin was on the screen again, military shirt hugging his belly. His speeches were so frequent that most of the time they paid little attention; he obviously thought that these were things great leaders did, giving long, dull sermons about whatever had entered their head that day. He addressed the viewers: ‘The Asians came to Uganda to build the railway; the railway is finished – they must leave now. I will give them ninety days to pack up and go. Asians have milked the cow but did not feed it.’

  Motichand leant forward, giving a phlegmy cough. ‘What’s he talking about?’

  Amin continued, ‘Africans are poor. Asians are rich. Asians are sabotaging the economy of Uganda. They have refused to allow their daughters to marry Africans. They have been here for seventy years.’

  ‘Did he say leave? In ninety days?’ Motichand laughed, a chai-coloured spray showering across his white shirt.

  ‘He’s lost his mind this time.’ Asha shook her head. ‘What will it be tomorrow? People whose names end in “k” must only walk on the right side of the street?’

  ‘He wants us to leave everything and never come back?’ said Jaya.

  ‘He makes these rules up as he goes along,’ said Asha. Amin changed his mind from one day – or hour – to another. All the more reason not to take him seriously.

  ‘ “Sabotaging the economy” – we helped build the economy,’ said Pran.

  ‘He’ll change his mind tomorrow.’ Motichand waved his hand in the air. ‘No point worrying.’

  ‘Let’s turn it off. Idi’s given us enough entertainment for tonight.’

  Pran walked up to the set. The screen went black.

  *

  But by the next evening, they wondered if they should have dismissed it so easily.

  ‘He’s still going on about it.’ Motichand walked into the kitchen, back from the dukan. He pinched a tomato slice from the bowl of kachumber. Jaya moved the bowl away.

  ‘You mean Amin?’ Asha lowered the heat on the stove and turned to face them.

  ‘Whisper, will you?’ said Pran in a low voice.

  ‘Why? You think he suddenly understands Gujarati? You think he’s hiding under the table?’ Vijay ducked down to look. ‘Amin Dada, where are you?’ He sang it like a nursery rhyme, with the term of endearment that many in Uganda used. ‘He’s so big he would have got stuck between the table legs. He’d be crawling around the kitchen like a tortoise!’

  Motichand let out a belly laugh that showed his back teeth.

  ‘What has he been saying?’ Jaya asked.

  ‘He’s saying that the Asians who aren’t Ugandan citizens must leave, but others can stay,’ Pran whispered, which made the news sound like a child making up stories.

  ‘He’s saying some of us should go? He’s serious about this?’ Asha’s head spun. How could they tell what was rumour and what was true? She carried the bowl of coconut mogo, the pieces of creamy cassava wobbling in the pot as she set it down on the table.

  ‘He knows the money would roll out with us, so now he’s backtracking,’ said Vijay.

  ‘Well, perhaps the Ugandans feel we’ve already been rolling the money out of this country for years. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons we’re in this mess now.’ Asha couldn’t hold the words back. She stared at Vijay and Pran. Both looked away.

  ‘That’s only the wealthy families.’ Motichand pulled out a chair and squeezed himself into it. ‘Hiding cash in foreign banks. As if the rest of us have that kind of money.’

  ‘The rest of us are only trying to get by,’ Jaya said, sitting down next to him.

  ‘It’s the same old story, the same one they told when we first arrived here, remember, Jaya?’ Motichand turned to his wife. ‘Then they said the British favoured Asians because they trusted us to oversee the railway construction. There’s always someone else holding them back.’

  ‘But it did hold the Ugandans back,’ said Asha. ‘Not everyone treats them well.’

  ‘We didn’t have it easy back in India. Why else would we have travelled so far?’ Motichand sighed. ‘Why are they acting like it’s all our fault?’

  Asha caught Pran’s eye.

  He looked away. ‘Obote used to blame us too, but even he would never have done this. It’s Amin who’s to blame. Anyway, we need to decide what to do. The other dukanwara are saying he’s serious.’

  ‘He’s done it before. When he sent the Israelis away,’ said Vijay.

  ‘That was a few hundred people.’ Motichand shook his head. ‘This time there’s thousands and thousands of us.’

  ‘But the point is, he did it,’ said Pran.

  ‘Remember that census of his? Makes sense now,’ said Vijay. The surprise census that Amin had ordered had seemed odd at the time, but everyone had put it down to yet another of his whims.

  ‘Counting us Asians up like he counts up his money,’ said Pran. ‘Making sure he has us exactly where he wants us. And he’ll have seen what his friends across the border are doing in Kenya and Tanzania too. Squeezing Asian businesses until they choke.’

  ‘Harassing us. Telling us we’re all corrupt and greedy ever since he first got into power, while we tried to run our businesses,’ said Motichand. ‘We should have seen it coming.’

  Asha stared at him. It seemed a bit rich, Motichand complaining about how difficult he was finding it to run his dukan when his sons were struggling with his mess.

  ‘They can keep on clashing amongst their tribes if they want to, but why don’t they keep us out of it?’ Motichand shook his head.

  That’s when it dawned on Asha: they’d all told themselves that it was nothing to do with them, even when it became obvious that things were getting harder. They’d all lived up there on Kololo Hill as though they were immune.

  ‘Well, it’s OK for you, Pran, you’ll be able to stay here with your Ugandan passport. We’re the ones who’ll be going for a nice, long holiday.’ Though Vijay tried to make light of it, no one laughed.

  ‘But Pran can’t stay here on his own,’ Jaya said.

  Asha looked at him. They couldn’t be apart. Surely no one would do that to them? It was
all such a mess. Asha, Vijay and Jaya had the British passports that they’d secured before Ugandan Independence, while Motichand had kept his Indian passport. Like so many other families, they’d hedged their bets, collecting passports between them like stamps, trying to tie themselves to different countries. They never expected to have to rely on any of it.

  ‘Where’ll we go?’ Vijay rubbed his temples.

  ‘India will let us in,’ said Motichand. ‘Of course they will.’

  ‘All of us?’ Vijay said.

  ‘Are we not Indian?’ Motichand threw his hand in the air.

  Asha had never even left Uganda, let alone visited India. She’d sometimes wondered what her life might have been like there, tucked away in a small town, stuck in the house all day doing nothing but chores. And what about her parents, her brothers? What would happen to them?

  ‘This is crazy.’ Pran shook his head. ‘I’m going to do something.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Asha.

  ‘I’m going to fight it. I’m not going to let them just take everything.’

  ‘Let’s think about it tomorrow, it has been a long day,’ said Motichand, helping himself to a kachori and dipping it into the ambli, tiny drips of tamarind sauce falling onto the table. ‘He might have changed his mind by then.’ But even Motichand didn’t sound certain any more.

  ‘And what about December? What’s going to happen to him?’ Jaya said, running her thumb along the side of her plate, over and over.

  But no one had an answer.

  *

  Days passed as the family tried to gather information about the expulsion. The newspaper headline that confronted Asha as she sat in the kitchen made it clear. Idi Amin said that it was up to the British government to take responsibility for Asians who left Uganda, while the British government tried to persuade India to take them. Everyone passed the buck, no one wanted them.

  Pran walked in, opened up a steel container and piled a spoonful of chevro into his hand. He knocked it back in one.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Asha’s life had become a jumble of calls and conversations with her parents and brothers, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, all trying to work out where to go. A few people they knew had already left, not wanting to take any chances. She thought of Sahar and her husband. They’d emigrated to Pakistan months back, worried about the growing violence and curfews, while others tried to convince themselves it would all pass.

  ‘We’re not going anywhere,’ said Pran.

  ‘What do you mean? You’ve heard what they’re saying.’ She showed him the newspaper; perhaps the thick black letters would jolt him back to reality. There’d been a letter in the Argus that week, wishing the Asians ‘a long, cold winter’.

  ‘We’ll stay. I’m working it all out.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Had Pran already forgotten that the government was led by a man who changed his mind, his wives, his right-hand men, all on an impulse? Shouldn’t they be prepared, even if Amin did change his mind?

  ‘They can’t just throw us out of the country we were born in.’

  ‘But you’ve seen what happened to Naseem.’ The week before, she and Jaya had gone to visit his parents and Razia. The family were beside themselves. They’d spent a long night waiting up for him but he hadn’t come home. The next day, Naseem’s abandoned car was found on a roadside just outside Kampala. His glasses and jacket were on the front seat.

  ‘He never goes anywhere without his glasses,’ Razia had cried, eyeliner running in black rivers down her cheeks. ‘They’ve taken him, I know it. They won’t tell us anything.’

  Though Jaya and Asha had tried to console them, Razia was convinced that the army was responsible. She was still trying to find out what happened.

  ‘It’s not the same. Naseem was mixed up with government officials. You think he made that money all on his own?’ said Pran.

  ‘You want to stay in a country that can just take people like that?’ She recalled the anguish in Razia’s face, how she’d clutched her handkerchief so tightly as she sobbed. Asha took his hand. ‘I’m angry too. But we’ll be safer if we leave.’

  ‘Don’t give up so easily. That’s not like you,’ said Pran. ‘I’ll find a way to stay here, trust me.’

  ‘OK, fine, you’re staying,’ she said, unable to hide her annoyance any longer. ‘Nothing’s going to change. What about December, is he just going to stay in that storeroom forever?’

  ‘I’m working on it.’ He washed his hands, then turned back towards her.

  ‘How?’

  ‘It’s not that easy, Asha. Anyway, we have enough to worry about.’

  ‘What happened to telling me everything? This isn’t what married life is supposed to be like.’

  ‘How do you know, have you been married before?’

  Still he cracked jokes. Asha put her palms against the table, tiny wooden ridges beneath her skin. ‘You said you’d be honest with me.’

  Pran’s smile faded. He pulled up a chair next to her, a hand on her shoulder, the heat from his skin meeting hers. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to worry about December on top of everything else.’

  ‘I’m not a china doll that needs protecting. Are you speaking to the same people? The ones you . . .’ she thought of the right words to use, ‘worked with before?’

  ‘I’m going to ask them, yes. I don’t know if it’ll work, though.’

  ‘You really have to go back to them?’

  ‘This is different. I’m not hiding money this time.’

  She still didn’t like it. If people could cheat the authorities, hiding their money all over the world and getting others to do their dirty work, how could you trust them? Asha looked up at him.

  ‘I’ll work it out, I promise. The last thing we should be doing is arguing, right?’ He put his hand on her shoulder; his familiar scent, musk and a hint of cigarette smoke. And there were the tiny dimples in each cheek.

  Asha stared into his eyes, black in the afternoon shade of the kitchen, and nodded.

  9

  Vijay

  ‘Record player, Vijay!’ Motichand sat forward in the armchair, rescuing the glass from his wobbling belly just in time.

  ‘Shhh, everyone’s asleep.’ Vijay rubbed his eyes. They were in the sitting room with Motichand’s best whisky for company. His father poured some into a third glass for December to drink the next day, as he’d often done over the years, though Motichand had drunkenly forgotten that December could now no longer come out into the kitchen to get it.

  ‘Sorry.’ Motichand rested his index finger on his lips. ‘Record player, Vijay!’ His volume remained the same.

  ‘We can’t put a record on at this time of night, Papa.’ He didn’t say the rest, but they both knew it. They couldn’t let patrolling soldiers hear.

  ‘Fine!’ Motichand jumped to his feet. ‘I make my own music.’

  Vijay followed his father as he wandered outside into the yard, lifting his arms into the air and clicking his fingers in a rhythm that Vijay couldn’t place.

  ‘How about some more whisky?’ Motichand held his hand up, showing Vijay a tiny gap between his thumb and index fingertip. ‘Just a little one?’

  ‘Come on, Papa, let’s go to bed.’

  Motichand started dancing around the frangipani tree. ‘This song, this is my song, Vijay!’

  Vijay followed him as he sang his favourite song, pretending to be happy-go-lucky Raj Kapoor, his Papa’s favourite silver screen actor.

  ‘Meraa juuta hai Japani.’ Motichand sang the Hindi song. Badly.

  ‘Shhhh, Papa, you’ll wake everyone up,’ Vijay said. ‘And I’m pretty sure your shoes were made at the shoemakers on Jinja Road, not in Japan.’

  The fruit bats scattered away into the night to escape the singing. ‘Yeh patluun Englishstani.’

  Vijay laughed in response to the lyrics and whispered, ‘Englishstani? The trousers were from Manaklal’s Fancy Stores in town, not from England.’

  ‘Sa
r pe laal topii Ruusi.’ Motichand tapped a toe with each step forward.

  ‘You don’t wear a hat,’ said Vijay, ‘not even one from Russia.’

  ‘Phir bhi dil hai Hindustanii.’ Motichand’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘Phir bhi dil hai Hindustanii.’ A shadow of sadness in the way he sang the words, now.

  ‘Now that is true. Your heart is truly Indian,’ Vijay said, taking a sip of whisky. He looked out across the yard, hearing the cricket call humming in the air, suddenly tired. ‘What’s going to happen to all of us, Papa? When we leave, I mean?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Motichand had sprung back to life, clapping his hands in the air. ‘This is an opportunity, Vijay!’

  ‘An opportunity?’

  ‘We can finally all go back to Gujarat.’ Motichand grinned.

  Vijay stepped towards him. ‘Papa, some of us were never there in the first place, how can we go back? Back to what?’

  ‘I was there. And your hearts are also Hindustani, no?’ Motichand ruffled Vijay’s hair.

  But Vijay had no answer. To leave your friends, your city, everything you’d ever known? His father made it sound so easy, to just up and leave. To go to a place he didn’t know at all, never even visited? So he spoke Gujarati, could hold a conversation in Hindi, ate daar bhaat and shaak rotli. You couldn’t know a country from afar, from films and news reports and what other people told you. That wasn’t home.

  For a moment, Vijay wished he was a child again, that Papa would brush away his tears or soothe him with a hug as he’d done when Vijay had fallen and hurt himself. He wished Papa would tell him that everything would be OK, even if both of them knew it was no longer true. He watched Motichand as he carried on wandering around the tree, dancing to the imaginary music that only he could hear. Vijay rested his head against the back wall and closed his eyes, hoping it would make his head stop spinning. Swallowing hard, the bitter tang of whisky on his tongue, his belly churning. So much to think about, leaving everything behind, three months. Too much to take in. He heard a crackling sound and opened his eyes.