Snakepit

by Moses Isegawa

  Amin initiated Ashes into the difficulties he faced when making movies: the rehearsals, the repeated takes, wearing a wooden jaw, three-hour make-up sessions, the bickering and infighting of the supporting cast. He talked about Hollywood parties, the whores, the tubs of champagne; and he confessed that that was where he picked up his coke habit. Before Hollywood he had been a fan of marijuana. Now he could not imagine life without the magic powder. They watched his commercials for high-powered rifles and explosive bullets. He boasted about his ten wives, his fifty known children, the contributions he had made to the country’s development.

  “Uganda will miss me dearly, as dearly as I miss Dr. Ali.”

  Ashes talked about his youth in Newcastle, the endless fog, the chilly docks, the dirty factories, the pain of not knowing his real father, the shame of hearing his mother fucked by an impostor, the emptiness of school life, the beauty of the first fire he set, and the resultant fire fetish, the excitement of London’s pre-war underworld, the seductive gangsters’ wives and whores, one of whom took his virginity, his first kill, the war, and the thrill of landing in Africa. These were two men fantasizing, rewriting and reliving their history as it came out of their mouths, ruminating on their dreams, not people balancing on the razor edge of a country spinning out of control. They both agreed that paradise must resemble these intense moments of historical improvisation.

  At the end of the holiday the Marshal realized that the country had drooled long enough with anticipation; it was time to reward it with the balm his resurrection would release. He left the island in his missile-proof helicopter. As it soared in the air, Ashes felt it in his bones that his time had come. It was a matter of waiting for the right hour. That night he heard the Marshal addressing the nation on the radio, refuting rumours that he was dead, or had been dead. He said that he had been to Saudi Arabia visiting the Holy Places, making sacrifices, praying to Allah to extend his rule for another fifty, only fifty years, during which rams would be fucking lionesses, and everybody would be driving around in an eight-door Boomerang. Ashes could not control his laughter. “He should have been a jazz musician. Such improvisation!”

  GENERAL BAZOOKA WAS currently obsessed with one project: killing Reptile before the government fell. He knew a lot about his movements, how he now and then participated in hunting down and burning smugglers. With luck and diligence he hoped to lure him into the trap, or even to meet him at one of his famed bonfires.

  At the beginning of the year the General detailed a group of his men to acquire boats and look for every opportunity to kill Ashes and his men. He had detailed others to seek employment with him and some had succeeded. With this two-pronged attack, he was guaranteed success sooner rather than later. It was now six months though, and Ashes was still alive. He was running out of patience. After Victoria’s trial, with his wife’s condition remaining diabolically unchanged, he had little to entertain him, apart from the parties. He further stood to lose his right little toe if he failed to get rid of Ashes within a month. A friendly general had challenged him at a party saying that he would never get the chance to finish off the reptile. General Bazooka had insisted that with his new plan it would take five months, at the latest seven. As a demonstration of confidence, the two men had exchanged toes. If Ashes died, the other general would cut off his own toe; if not, Bazooka would snip off his.

  General Bazooka’s men first posed as smugglers, then they discovered that their plan worked best if they provided security to smugglers operating in Ugandan waters. They staked their claim and sank boats which refused to pay upfront. From then on everybody did what they said. If they gave the order that nobody operate for a week, the lake stayed clean for that duration. That way they gained control over the waters, the ports, the islands, and waited for the chance to strike. They started provoking patrol boats, hiding on desert islands and shooting at them from the rocks with bazookas and machine-guns. Using powerful radios, they intercepted incoming messages, gave conflicting orders and lured patrol boats into traps.

  Ashes resisted taking the bait. The territory under supervision was so vast, so treacherous, that he wanted to avoid costly confrontations. He still preferred to surprise smugglers, kill most of the men, capture the rest, sink the boats, and burn the captives as a lesson. Under pressure from their boss, General Bazooka’s men decided to heat the water by sinking patrol boats with their crews. They started sending insulting messages to the Anti-Smuggling Unit, calling them cold-blooded murderers, cannibals, soiled sanitary napkins, gorillas, pigs’ asses, and boasting how they were going to capture and roast every one of them.

  Ashes responded by sending a helicopter to comb the lake and the shores. Soon after, two fishing villages frequently used by smugglers were bombed flat by helicopter gunships. That did not deter Bazooka’s men. His chief advisor told them to spread rumours that the CIA was behind the recent acts of provocation. The CIA was a very feared entity in these parts. The presence of American warships in the Indian Ocean was enough to sow fear in anybody’s heart. Ashes did not believe that the Americans were interested in Amin or in Uganda. He was still afraid that some crazy CIA boss might send his men to capture him just to kill boredom or to win a bet made in a brothel. After all, he was visible, white, outrageous. There was also the possibility that Interpol might ask the CIA to capture him for crimes committed over the years. Shaming him would shake Amin, and nowadays humiliating the Marshal had become a big pastime abroad.

  Ashes proceeded with caution. His men were also becoming harder to motivate because, lacking information and analytical capabilities, they believed the CIA rumours and did not want to fight against Americans. He started going out with them more often in order to reassure them. However, his hand was forced when the Marshal got wind of the situation and asked what he planned to do about it.

  “All-out war,” he replied, lamenting the fact that Uganda had no battleships to grind the smugglers’ hideouts to rubble.

  The heart of the coffee-smuggling operations lay to the north and north-east of Lake Victoria. In that area the waters were full of islands, big and small, populated and bare, and the shores were rich with ports and potential landing facilities, bays, creeks. Some shores were massive, chopped, mean-faced boulders strewn with papyrus; some gentle sands and mud-flats alive with little fishes, leeches, and canoes. Sometimes forest crept near to the water, forming a thatched wall of trees easy to hide in. Sometimes one could move from the water and walk in short grass for miles. It was this variety, this unpredictability, this unevenness of surface, that made effective patrolling an impossible task. It would have taken a whole army to do a proper job. Ashes called himself “Admiral of the Victoria,” but with the Kenyan government encouraging smugglers who, at the peak, also operated overland, he knew that his real power was limited.

  At the beginning of his career he had chosen the most obvious option: patrolling the more popular waterways and stationing his men on the islands more frequented by smugglers. But his men had started taking bribes, and the smugglers had worked out alternative routes. More infuriating still, there were Kenyan islands two kilometres from Ugandan waters. The Kenyans would place gunboats just over the border and escort Ugandan smugglers to safety.

  On the day the final battle was fought, Ashes had ten gunboats at his command. His plan was to attack with the boats and call in the helicopter to cream off the smugglers who tried to slip through the gaps. It would be nice to watch the helicopter toying with them, giving them a few metres here and there, and then taking them out in spectacular fireballs which would light up the night. The confrontation took place fifty kilometres from his island, in a waterway between two barren islands.

  At around midnight the patrol spotted a lone smuggler. They challenged the boat to stop, but it took off at high speed. They gave chase in order to cut it off, but the boat managed to lure them into a cliff-faced creek. Five boats went after it, like mad hounds after a rabbit. It was a very simple but effective trap. As soon as the bo
ats were within range, the machine-guns started firing. Bazooka’s men blew up and sank patrol boats. The cries of wounded men were buried under the clatter of guns and the explosion of grenades. When Ashes started to withdraw his men, boats emerged from the blind side of the cliffs and opened fire. Ashes took a bullet in the chest area of his bulletproof jacket. He escaped with a cracked rib. When he called in his helicopter, an unfamiliar voice at the other end cursed him. At that moment he realized that Bazooka’s men had overrun his headquarters and taken over his island. He had two options: to fight his way to safety and go to the nearest barracks for help, or to flee to Kenya and leave the country for good.

  Escorted by two boats, Ashes made his way out of danger, sailed on and landed at the small port of Majanji. He hired a pick-up truck, which had come for fish, to take him to the border town of Busia. Two days later he crossed into Kenya on a false passport. At Mombasa he got medical attention and booked a place on a ship to Cape Town.

  GENERAL BAZOOKA COULD NOT BELIEVE hisears. He had set the perfect trap, his men had overrun the island, and yet he had come away empty-handed. A day later his men arrested Ashes’ wife, bringing her in with a black eye. It turned out to be somebody else. He released her, changed his mind, wanting to ask her a few more questions, but the men sent to go after her five minutes later lost her. The real Mrs. Ashes had, in the meantime, disappeared into the maze of villages.

  A WEEK LATER the South African government bragged about offering political asylum to Amin’s right-hand man.

  AMIN UNLEASHED vintage invective against the racist regime for a whole week.

  Ashes listened to his former employer’s rantings from the safety of his farm, bought two years before. In the distance he could see the Table Mountains wreathed in mist. In his backyard he could see vines, laden with the grape famous for producing white wine. He could hardly wait to launch the harvest and his future career as vintner.

  TWO DAYS AFTER CUTTING off his toe, General Bazooka received a summons to report to the State House. The Defence Council gathered and put him in command of the main force charged with driving the dissidents from south-western Uganda. Doing his best to disguise his limp and pain as the boot bit into the wound, he tried to find credible reasons for not complying. He had lost touch with the region. He wanted to stay and guard the city. His wife was, after all, in Mulago Hospital. Marshal Amin, who had been drifting away under hallucinations induced by whisky (disguised with Coca-Cola to keep up appearances as a teetotaler), cocaine and fear, seemed to wake up for the first time. All thirty eyes in the room turned to him, to scrutinize him for signs as to the fate of the errant general. There was a holding of breath among the congregated generals. Amin fixed on Bazooka a very meaningful stare. Disobedience? Wife? When the fate of the nation was at stake? The General felt chilly despite the fact that it was a hot afternoon and the sun was blazing outside. Amin had said nothing to him about Ashes and his involvement in the affair.

  Under the cold stares of his colleagues, all of whom were grateful that Ashes was gone, General Bazooka accepted the order, but he asked for permission to take his wife with him.

  “You must be mad. Do you want to give that patriotic woman to the enemy? Mulago is the best hospital in the country. It is where she belongs till you return with victory.”

  General Bazooka realized that mentioning his wife had been a big mistake, and the freezing looks from fellow generals and the hateful eye Amin fixed on him had unsettled him. Now he had to think very quickly of a plan to get her out. He had less than an hour to do it. He had last seen her the day before. He had once again asked if she wanted to go to Libya, and as a reply he had got the request to describe the smell of the air outside. Suddenly, he felt his dreams go sour, coagulating into heavy rotting lumps. He had got used to the visits, the sound of her croaking voice, the view outside the window. Without her and the children, he had little left. They underpinned everything, absolved every crime. Without them he felt hollow. He could see the winds from the south sweeping his achievements away, stripping him naked. Victory? Why should I be its guarantor? Maybe I should shoot the Marshal and die honourably, but there is no honour in suicide, except if committed to evade capture and betrayal of war secrets, he mused. He wondered what he should do next, but before he could reach any decision, the meeting was adjourned. He stood up, saluted and left with the rest.

  Major Ozi, in his capacity as head of the Eunuchs, escorted him out and informed him that he, Ozi, was now in charge of the General’s family’s security and welfare. Ozi informed the bewildered general that he was not allowed to go to hospital to say goodbye or to collect his children from school. He was to get on the move to the south-west immediately.

  Major Ozi enjoyed watching the signs of alarm on the General’s face. He smiled as he watched him write out messages to his mother, instructing her to take charge of everything till his return. He had waited for this moment for a very long time.

  He held all these generals responsible for the instability in the country and in the government. He held them responsible for failing to repulse the dissidents or to infiltrate their camps in Tanzania and wipe them out. He held them responsible for the death of his men in coup attempts, the last of which had cost him twenty men and left ten wounded, and for the bombing of his shop and shops belonging to some of his men. He hated them for indulging themselves instead of running their ministries and fulfilling other responsibilities on their shoulders. He hated Bazooka for wasting the taxpayers’ money on capers, and especially for running Colonel Robert Ashes off, which had left Amin without a confidant, making him moodier, more paranoid, more dependent on drugs, and harder to protect. As a man whose job and life depended on Amin remaining alive and in power, Major Ozi hated these men for threatening his life, and the lifestyle of his men. What would happen to the wealth he and his men had collected? And on a more personal level, he hated the General for killing his friends while quelling revolts in the army.

  In the past few years Major Ozi had done it all. The Eunuchs had risen to such power that everybody, including Amin’s wives, was afraid of them. They had in fact organized a car crash in which one of the Marshal’s wives died, and arrested another on suspicion of cheating on him. That had been the apogee; nothing could beat laying one’s hands on the wife of the most powerful man in the land. The Eunuchs had also broken the Vice President’s back. With these, and many more achievements bubbling in his head, he wondered what to do with this man. The Marshal had, literally, given his head to him on a plate. It was up to him to slice it off if he wanted. The Marshal had also given him this man’s entire family. He wondered how to tackle them, whether to make it easy for them or to make their life extremely hard. He hoped that the remaining generals would learn a lesson from Bazooka’s trials and tribulations. He dismissed the General with a friendly shake of the hands and wished him success in his coming campaign.

  General Bazooka left the State House feeling sick. He was now head of troops he did not know and officers he did not trust. They carried out his orders woodenly, making no input whatsoever. On the way, he saw the nightmare of a disorganized army, with tanks in the wrong places, lorries full of scared soldiers labouring to the wrong destinations, orders lost on the way in a faulty chain of command, the wrong ammunition delivered to the wrong places. He could feel the glee with which the civilians watched, and he felt angry that there was little he could do about it. There were chaotic roadblocks which slowed the progress of both soldiers and supplies. The codes were messed up, and at times it seemed as if the dissidents were in charge. He suspected that some of these men were deliberately messing up things out of fear of engaging the enemy, praying that by the time their turn came the order would be given to withdraw. There were bodies along the road, civilians shot by soldiers, soldiers shot by soldiers mistaken for dissidents. And the fact that this was hardly two hundred kilometres from the capital dismayed him.

  General Bazooka could not concentrate. During the first few days he got n
o chance to send a message home. The phones did not work, the radio messages were intercepted, the men were untrustworthy. When he finally sent men to check what was happening, they were waylaid and killed by the Eunuchs, leaving him in limbo. Over the years he had been looking forward to the chance to relive the adrenaline rush of the days before the coup. The incredible pressure, the fear of betrayal, the possibility of dying in action, the glowing beacon of victory. He wanted to explode and lose control for some delicious hours, and sow destruction with impunity. But now that the time had come, he found out that things had changed. There was no excitement, there was nothing to look forward to, no country to take over, no enemies to hunt down, no women to violate, no new experiences to be had. All he felt now was fear of the Marshal, and contempt and hatred for him. He looked down upon himself for landing in this predicament, for failing to shoot the Marshal, for obeying that terrible major and his killers. This was a lost war, because Marshal Amin had failed to keep things together. He had no plan, no talent for leadership. It had all along been a ride on the back of a mad bull, holding on for as long as possible.

  He marched through the towns he had captured years ago and felt disgusted. The sound of guns offered no comfort, no solace, no signal to charge. They were scared guns. The hills had already been surrendered, the valleys a carpet for the invaders to walk on. The south-west was gone. He felt no desire to sacrifice these loathsome men just to give a lost cause a few more breaths of life. At any other time he would have enjoyed flogging them, maybe even wringing their necks. Now he wanted them gone, out of his sight. Many were deserting, disappearing in the night. They would rather risk capture and flogging or death than face the guns. He got on the radio to the Defence Council, but there was no one home on the hotline. At that moment he decided to go back to the city and rescue his family.