Where the Air is Sweet

by Tasneem Jamal

  Jaafar will drive Baku’s twin boys and the remainder of the luggage in his car.

  Baku’s family spent their last night at Raju’s house. Their house was locked up, the furniture given away. For four days they stayed in Kampala at the Apollo Hotel. They went to the cinema, ate in expensive restaurants, indulged in a lifestyle that had never been within their reach. “I might as well spend my money; I am not allowed to take it with me,” Baku had told Raju a week earlier. Mumtaz watched Raju’s face. She waited for him to speak, to correct his son. It used to be their money. But Raju said nothing.

  Baku’s sons are already sitting in the back seat of Jaafar’s green Renault R17. He had bought the hatchback from Eliab three days ago. Two weeks earlier, Jaafar had sold Eliab the Citroën Chapron DS 19 and the BMW 2002. The cars were too tempting, too attractive to the soldiers. Whenever they stopped Jaafar, Mumtaz saw them eye his car, stroke it. More than once Mumtaz saw soldiers stop their Jeeps in front of the house, get out and examine the vehicles. Eliab paid him less than the cars were worth. “I will have to give them up anyways,” Jaafar told Mumtaz. “Eliab knows this. I know this. We are both businessmen.”

  The engines of the Peugeot and the Renault start at the same time. A gang of teenagers that has gathered in front of the house lets out a cheer. They hoot and shout as the cars drive off. Mumtaz watches them. They are pointing after the cars and laughing. “Weh, Bangladeshi!” one of them shouts. Karim, who is standing in the driveway with his mother and sister, looks up at Mumtaz.

  “There was a war in Pakistan,” she says. “The Bangladeshis were on one side. These boys must be listening to news reports. They think we are Bangladeshi.”

  “Why?” he asks. “We live here.”

  “I don’t know,” she says irritably.

  Mumtaz takes Shama’s hand and Karim follows them into the house. Raju is standing on the verandah. He is looking past Mumtaz, watching the teenagers, his face expressionless. Yozefu steps towards them with a stick, shouting at them to get lost. Mumtaz can hear them laughing as she leads the children into the kitchen.

  Two days later, her suitcases packed and loaded in the car, Mumtaz walks to the backyard and knocks on the door of the servants’ quarters. Almost immediately it opens and Esteri is standing before her. She is framed by darkness. The leaves of the mango tree, of the guava tree prevent the sun from reaching the squat building. Mumtaz hands Esteri Rehmat’s saffron pacheri, the one she wore every day, the one she brought from her childhood.

  “Hapana,” Esteri says, shaking her head, refusing the gift. “Hapana, Mamadogo.”

  “I didn’t ask Mzee or Bwana,” Mumtaz says, pressing the pacheri into Esteri’s hands. “And don’t you show anyone. Keep it hidden until we are gone. And then after we have left, after Mzee and Bwana have left, wear it proudly.”

  Heavy tears fall from Esteri’s eyes.

  “We mhindi mothers, we are quiet,” Mumtaz says. “We have learned to be quiet. We obey our men, even our sons when they become men. But we give our daughters gifts. Things we cherish, things of value—” Mumtaz begins to cry. She cannot speak. After a moment, she finds her voice. “Things of value to us, things that have nothing to do with men, or their world. Things men cannot touch, even in their dreams.”

  Esteri is holding Rehmat’s pacheri against her chest, her eyes lowered. She is trembling.

  Mumtaz places her hand under Esteri’s chin and lifts her face until the older woman is looking at her. “You must forgive her for not fully sharing in your life. She was so fond of you. She loved you. You know she was good; she was only good. But she wasn’t strong enough. And she was the strongest among us.”

  The drive to Entebbe is less painful than Mumtaz expected. The soldiers appear by now exhausted or satiated. They wave Jaafar through at each checkpoint with only a perfunctory glance inside the vehicle.

  Mumtaz stands with Karim and Shama while Jaafar checks in their suitcases. The children are uncharacteristically quiet today. Shama stands a few feet apart from Mumtaz and Karim, staring at soldiers walking languorously, their weapons slung over their slender shoulders. Karim examines the new watch on his wrist, running his finger over its face. There is nothing left to do but say goodbye. Jaafar lifts Shama into his arms and holds her in a bear hug. “Daddy will see you very soon,” he says quietly into her ear. He sets her down beside her brother and bends down to look Karim in the eyes. “My boy, take care of Mummy and Shama.”

  The child nods and points at his watch. “How many hours until the deadline?”

  Jaafar pats him on the head. “Twenty-eight or so.”

  He turns to Mumtaz. She opens her mouth to say goodbye. But a sob threatens to escape. She quickly closes her mouth to contain it. She does not want to frighten the children. Jaafar takes her face firmly in his hands. “Soon, very soon. I’m coming.” Then she watches his face crumple. “He did it,” he whispers hoarsely. “He threw us out. Like trash.” He runs his hands over his face, looks down at the children staring wide-eyed at him and gathers himself.

  As they climb the steps to the airplane, the first airplane she and her children have ever seen, a big, white BOAC DC-8, Mumtaz turns once to wave.

  22

  WHEN THE DEADLINE PASSES, RAJU IS ASLEEP in his bedroom in Mbarara.

  In the morning, he shaves and dresses as though it were any other day and walks into the dining room. Yozefu is in the kitchen. Raju asks him if Jaafar is awake. “Hapana, Mzee,” he says, shaking his head, his eyes on the floor. Yozefu is the family’s only remaining employee. Over the last week, Jaafar let everyone else go. Esteri continues to live in the servants’ quarters. Raju has told her she can remain until the new owners of the house ask her to leave. But he suggested she go sooner, in case the army gives her trouble. She understands that she is no longer employed by his family, she told Raju, but she will not leave until he leaves.

  Yozefu makes him a fried egg and toast. After he eats breakfast, Raju walks outside. It is the ninth of November 1972. The morning is comfortably warm, a cool breeze in the air. There are a few clouds high in the sky. It is quiet. He looks up at the trees. Even the birds, he thinks, have flown away. Then he hears them singing, screaming, as Karim says, and he smiles. He walks to the road and looks in the direction of McAllister Road, towards town. He sees no cars. He does not know what he expected to see. He does not yet know what will happen.

  He begins walking along Constantino Lobo Road. He does not walk towards the garage. He goes in the opposite direction. Each house he passes is quiet. The doors bolted shut. Only Asians lived on this street. And now they are gone. No cars pass him. No bicycles. No people. He does not even see an animal.

  He reaches a property. He stops and looks at it. He has avoided looking at it for the last month. Raju bought the property for Jaafar. It is in his name. A foundation has been laid, the grey-brick outline of a house rising only two feet above the ground. Raju began supervising construction six months ago. It is a large property, as big as Raju’s, as Baku’s. This is where Jaafar was to have begun his own life, where his children were supposed to grow up. Raju halted construction when it became clear they would have to leave. The house stands suspended: a home with no walls, no roof. A life waiting to be lived. Raju turns back, walking slowly, towards McAllister Road.

  When he reaches the end of Constantino Lobo Road, he sees the jamat khana. It looks dull, as though someone used dirtied white paint to cover the entire building. But he knows it has not been touched. He knows only that it is empty, that it is locked shut, the building to be handed over to Uganda’s African Muslims. After moving to Mbarara, Raju did not attend jamat khana regularly. But it gave him comfort to know it was there, if he needed it, when he needed it. But now it is gone. Without its jamat, its congregation, its community, it is a shell. A corpse. Nothing.

  He turns left. Rajabali Auto Repairs is directly across the road. He does not cross. He does not move closer. He does not look at it.

  In town, he sees no s
oldiers on the streets. In the last days before the deadline, soldiers were everywhere, in vehicles, on foot, watching each movement any remaining Asians made. Raju looks around. Every shop, every business is shuttered, the Asian owners gone. It feels hollow. Emptied out. Eviscerated. Ladha and Sons, Naaz Emporium, Jetha Grocers Ltd., Kherani Drapery Store, Sabzali Nanji Ramji Shop, Banyankole Bakery Ltd., Mini-Profit Textiles, Jiwani Shoe Shop, Lakhani Fancy Goods. They are like the titles of stories. Unfinished stories. Untold stories.

  Two men walk towards Raju. Small, slight men. They are barefoot. One man wears a singlet, the other a long-sleeved dress shirt. They each wear trousers crudely torn off at the bottom. Raju tries to look at their faces, to see if he can guess by their features if they are Banyankole, so that he can determine in which language to greet them. The men keep their faces averted. Raju cannot see what they are, who they are. He says nothing and they walk past him.

  He passes a few more men. None look at him. No women sell wares or fruit. There is no one to buy them. No children are scampering about. He leaves town and walks off the paths. Even the cows and their herders have disappeared.

  Beyond town a child is walking, a small girl wearing a T-shirt in place of a dress. Her feet are bare, her head is shorn. But Raju knows from the beads around her neck that she is a girl. She cannot be more than four years old. He stops. He smiles. She looks up at him. She does not return the smile. She does not appear frightened. He bends down so that his face is level with hers. She does not move; her expressionless face does not twitch. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out two coins. He holds out his hand. She takes the money, her face betraying no emotion. Then she runs.

  When Raju reaches his house, Jaafar is standing on the verandah.

  “Bapa, you shouldn’t have gone out without telling me. We don’t know how things are yet—”

  “I am not a child,” Raju says, interrupting him, walking up the steps, past him. “Things are quiet. The army is gone.”

  In the late afternoon, Amir arrives. Raju stares at him for a moment, as though he is looking at a ghost. “I thought you would have come earlier, to say goodbye to Baku, Mumtaz, the children.”

  “I couldn’t bear another farewell.”

  “We’ll see them soon.”

  Amir shakes his head. “Not me.”

  “Will you open a new practice?” It is Jaafar. He has walked into the sitting room behind Raju.

  “Eventually, yes. My patients were 95 percent Asian. I don’t know how many Africans will run to an Asian doctor quite yet. Maybe more than I think. In the meantime, I’ll manage.”

  Amir is more educated than Raju dreamed a child of his could be. He does not touch alcohol or cigarettes. Raju hears no stories of Amir carousing with women. He attends jamat khana regularly, almost daily. The good son, others say and Raju concurs. But even as he does, he feels a distance from him, as though he is speaking of someone else’s child.

  When Jaafar and Amir were thirteen, the boys moved to Kampala to attend secondary school. Six weeks later, Jaafar returned home for a visit and informed his father that he was leaving school. “But why?” Raju asked. “You’re smart, smarter than your brother. You’ll go far, maybe obtain a degree one day.”

  “I don’t belong at school. I want to work with you, help you.”

  Mumdu was long gone. Baku did not have the mind, the judgment, the backbone to ever take over the business. Raju could not refuse.

  Quietly, obediently, Amir stayed in school. When he completed secondary school, he went directly to university and then worked in Kampala and beyond, finding reasons to travel farther and farther, helping poor Africans in the bush, Africans who did not have phones, postal service. Even after settling in Kampala, he was always too busy to come home more than one or two times a year.

  The day Jaafar decided to stop his education, Raju felt defied by his son. He believed Jaafar was being irresponsible. But on that day it was Amir who left his responsibilities. It was Amir who left Raju.

  Staring at Amir now, covered in dust and sweat, sharing life plans he made, as he always has made them, without consulting anyone in the family, Raju has only just realized it.

  “Doctor Sahib,” Raju says, turning away, “you are lost.”

  “We are all lost,” Amir says.

  Raju pushes air through his nose. A laugh. Almost a laugh.

  The next morning, a messenger summons the men to the district commissioner’s office. When they arrive, each is welcomed with smiles and handshakes. Besides the district commissioner, the commanding officer of the Simba Battalion is there, as well as the commander of the Mbarara Police, the commanding officer of the prison and the town clerk. Three other Asians are at the office. Raju knows them, though not well: two Ismaili brothers and a Sikh contractor.

  “You are true citizens of Uganda,” the district commissioner says. “Because you have chosen to remain in this country after your kinsmen have gone.”

  The Asians are issued re-entry permits; they can leave Uganda and come back in at will. Their homes and businesses have been handed over or sold. Their bank accounts are frozen. Everything they owned up to now is no longer theirs. They must have their identity cards ready to be presented at all times. But, says Brigadier Abdul Fattah, laughing, patting Raju’s back, “True Ugandans. True Ugandans.”

  In the following days, the roadblocks are removed. The few soldiers walking on the street glance only briefly when they pass Raju. He ought to breathe freely. And yet he cannot. Each day his lungs feel as though they can take in less air, as though they are shrinking, or the air is becoming thicker.

  “After that talk and all the warnings,” Raju says as they eat breakfast, “why is the army being so friendly?”

  “Because they won. How many of us are left?” Jaafar says. “A handful in Mbarara, probably fewer than a hundred in all of Uganda. I think if thousands had stayed it would be different, much different. We’re nothing now. Weak, poor, powerless. I think they enjoy seeing us. We are a reminder of their victory. Crazy, isn’t it? They like us now. They love us.” Jaafar and Amir laugh. Raju is quiet.

  Later that morning, Jaafar speaks to Mumtaz on the telephone. When he is finished, he hands the phone to Raju. She tells him she and the children are staying in Hobbs Barracks, in a place called Surrey, in Newchapel. She tells him the flight was terrible. The plane was packed and she couldn’t sit with the children. They each sat alone, between strangers, one in front of the other. When they reached London, they travelled by bus from the airport to Hobbs Barracks. She can’t be sure how long the drive took. She felt as though she were suspended in space, chilled, everything outside the window black.

  “Your coat wasn’t warm enough?”

  “Our coats were fine. The bus was heated. I was cold from the inside out. Anyways, they were giving out coats and hats at the airport. New clothes. They even served tea and offered pocket money. I had the tea but didn’t take the money or clothes. We have enough.”

  Mumtaz describes the barracks. She tells him there are about seven hundred other Asians housed there; Shama and Karim have no shortage of playmates. She has a small, clean, heated room with two beds and a window. The washrooms are large and shared.

  “It reminds me of living at boarding school. It’s better than I expected. Though I don’t know what I expected. A captain is in charge of the barracks. But otherwise soldiers are not walking around. Thank God. There is fresh milk. It tastes different, but the children like it. Three times a day we eat in a large cafeteria. They serve English food.” She begins laughing. “Shama expected mashed potatoes to taste like ugali. But she wasn’t disappointed when they didn’t.”

  The next morning, Raju meets Jaafar in town. They have come to meet Mubinga to discuss his payment plan for Rajabali Auto Repairs. Raju is standing on the curb in front of the garage, Jaafar beside him. He sees army officers walking with two men in suits towards the locked door of an abandoned Asian business. One of the officers turns. It is Al-Bashir. H
e calls Jaafar over.

  “Our tools are rubbish,” he says. “Bring a better tool from the garage.” He does not say your garage.

  Jaafar walks into Rajabali Auto Repairs and emerges minutes later with a cutting torch. He breaks whichever lock he is asked to break. He keeps his head lowered. Raju walks a few feet behind Jaafar. He looks at the sign on each window and lets himself imagine who used to own the business, whose father built it, whose son sat behind the counter, whose children played out front.

  Al-Bashir thanks Jaafar and invites them to the barracks.

  That evening, Raju, Jaafar and Amir have dinner at the officers’ mess at the Simba Battalion. The room is spacious: about fifteen tables are covered with white linens and a long bar runs along one wall. The wood is dark and polished. Raju had no idea anything this posh existed in Mbarara. The selection of food is impressive. European and African fare, everything from roast chicken to matooke. Al-Bashir shows them a shop in the barracks. He tells them they are welcome to purchase anything they like. The shop sells top-of-the-line cameras, projectors, stereo equipment, foreign-made clothes and alcohol. The alcohol is European, imported, like everything in the shop. Raju has never seen so many foreign goods in any shop in Mbarara, even in Kampala.

  When they leave, Jaafar is clutching a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label in one hand and a bottle of Chivas Regal in the other. Amir is carrying a bag with more bottles of liquor. Al-Bashir laughs.

  “Come back for more,” he tells them. “Anytime.”

  Jaafar is grinning. A boy in a toy store. A boy in a sweet store. Raju feels as though he has fallen into a hole and emerged in another world. A world he cannot recognize. One stipulation, the major says. Don’t let people see the stickers on the bottles, the ones reading NAAFI, otherwise they will know these are army issue. That night, Jaafar fills the bathtub with water and lets the bottles soak overnight. The next morning the NAAFI stickers slide off. Yozefu lines up the bottles on the long, mahogany buffet. A display of liquor in Raju’s home. He looks at the bottles, at the light glinting off the glass, and says nothing.