The guards want to sit and gossip and joke now.
Joro asks if they can get their money and papers back. Their passports. Two hundred dollars is returned to each of them. They had arrived with eight hundred each, having left some money with their families. “And the rest?” asks Charles.
“That was all you had,” says the older guard. “But we can let you shower and give you fresh clothes. A good meal. What would you like?”
“We would just like to get out of here,” Charles says, his voice subdued but firm. “Right away. We would like a drive to the airport.”
An hour later, they are taken by jeep to a military airport and left in a hangar. They are told that the American Embassy is sending a plane for them. How are the Americans involved? Charles wonders. He and Joro stare stonily ahead.
The driver of the jeep is silent for most of the ride from the border. Just before dropping them, he suddenly speaks. “You must be important. You must be some kind of spies. Are you CIA? Why don’t you stay in Rwanda? We could use some good spies.” They remain silent.
In the empty hangar, they wait for their plane. Another guard — who looks no more than sixteen — stands casually at the entrance holding a rifle. Then the ancient phone on the wall near him rings. He answers, says a few words and then calls them over.
“You speak,” he tells them. “Not a good line. Nairobi.”
The line crackles and groans as if a ship were rolling over it. Charles says a hesitant hello.
“What the hell are you doing in Rwanda?” It is Robert’s voice. “Rwanda is the other way!”
“Joro and I thought it would be a safer place to cross,” says Charles apologetically.
“There are more efficient ways to die than taking a wrong turn. Use a compass next time. Meanwhile just get your sorry selves on the plane as soon as it arrives. We are waiting for you in Nairobi.”
Charles looks at Joro wanting to laugh. “Robert is waiting for us in Nairobi.” Tears fill his eyes.
He is getting used to planes. But this one is small. A flimsy toy plane controlled by a child with a string, he thinks nervously. The flight itself is less than two hours. They both remember that first dazzling, terrifying school trip they took together not so long ago. “When I went to Nairobi with Mengo, the city scared me,” Charles admits to Joro.
“Well now it will save you. No more of Amin’s cutbacks here. In Nairobi things actually work: electricity, sewage, running water.”
At Embakasi Airport, they have their passports stamped by a Kenyan official, younger than they, who asks why they are here.
“For work,” says Joro.
“What kind of work?”
“We are artists.”
The uniformed guard is suspicious and makes a call. Moments later, they enter Kenya as free men.
“So many refugees must be fleeing from Amin,” Joro whispers.
Charles, tries to find a place for the term “refugee” in his head.
“Ugandans on the run are flooding in here. Taking up jobs and houses. Kenyans like to control things. They can’t control us.”
At the end of a passage of blue-carpeted walls, doors suddenly swing open revealing Robert, Kiri, Beth, Mara, Joseph, and Kasa.“Where are the others? Susi and Willy? Obusi?” asks Joro.
“We don’t know,” says Robert. “We’re still waiting to hear.”
Despite this anxious cloud thickening above them, Robert smiles like a father whose prodigal sons have returned home. “Here,” says Robert. “Let me introduce you to our friends from the American Embassy. They have money for you.”
Effusive embassy officials shake hands in the limousine simultaneously giving Joro and Charles each two thousand dollars in cash. “We want you to feel better. We want you to know who your friends are. This is a grant that had been applied for.”
The Americans are generous, thinks Charles. But Robert never mentioned a grant. Why are they doing this?
The welcoming committee also includes a Kenyan police official and Uganda’s Deputy Minister of Culture, a gracious woman who flourishes flowers under their noses. “I am so glad you made it here,” she says.
Charles is skeptical of these new connections.
A police cruiser leading, they drive the nine miles from Embakasi to the city centre. Charles watches the new housing estates fly by, industrial parks, railway sidings, access roads, highways. They are taken to a hotel.
“This will be home for awhile,” says Robert. “It’s a little like a small amusement park, but we will be safe here and the Americans are paying. Charge anything you eat to the room.”
They thank their saviours again. The company — most of them — is once more together and everyone wants to hear their story.
That evening, Charles asks Beth what has been going on. “We are in a state of ignorance,” she says. “We don’t know who we are any more. Or who these Americans are. Only that we cannot return to Uganda. Our lives have changed completely. Our families have no idea where we are and we cannot tell them. We are like orphans.”
Charles takes it as his personal challenge to comfort and reassure Beth that night.
A week later, Robert moves them to a slightly better hotel in the English residential area of the city, once exclusively European. Here they sit in the soft lamp-glow of wood-panelled pubs having afternoon high tea.
“You would probably have to be a member of the House of Lords to afford this in London,” says Charles. He is admiring the polished brass and shining carved mahogany, the plush velvet seat cushions, and inviting nooks and crannies of the pub. For several afternoons in a row, they take tea like this, served on silver. Dainty sweets and crustless sandwiches on a three-tiered tray. Black waiters in white gloves.
In an affable fog of cigarette smoke and laughter, conversation turns away from the missing members of the company to discussions about their plush luxury beds, the problems of adjusting thermostats, and the pleasures of room service.
During this period Robert comes and goes. Sometimes he is amiable. Mostly he is tense. They all agree he’s not getting any sleep. When he is with them, he is depressed. He finally opts for work and books a rehearsal space at the Alliance Française, charging Charles with the task of heading warm-ups. Kiri does vocals. Beth leads improvisation exercises.
They are thirteen now instead of sixteen. But they are still Abafumi. They talk of a new production amidst posters of French wines, food, and bathing beauties whose breezy bronze bodies offer the flowery languor of Nice in return for learning a few fundamental French words.
Eventually, they begin rehearsals of Ekinke-kenke under Joro, now the new Assistant Director, and Charles, their Company Manager. “Ekinke-kenke is the cry of the refugee,” says Robert. “The cry of fear. The ultimate demon of destruction.”
The actors learn to shout their anger, their fear. Their speeches now spin around the invisible tower of a curse: strong words soaked in bloody event. The power of terrible taboo forges separate meaning into a thick wall of threat.
But who or what is the enemy? In this new work, there is no recognizable creature. It is something amorphous. Without head or tail or legs: Ekinke-kenke. Invisible, ubiquitous, Ekinke-kenke squats on the stage, an actor with a crooked face.
Once it enters the scene, dreadful things happen. Vegetation shrivels, huts are raided. There is sickness and death. The people run, seeing the source of their torment, its size.
But it is sound only. A signal from another world. The next desperate chapter of their own story. Abafumi’s reduced company now plays out a Ugandan tragedy it knows it cannot really alter.
Villagers prowl around their dwellings with machine guns, in pursuit of Ekinke-kenke, blasting it out into the darkness. The dancers become tanks rolling through jungle. The villagers put their own people before the firing squad. And so the village is reduced to a pile of smold
ering garbage. Fed upon by flies. Implacable. Droning.
In their own strange new lives, the Abafumi faithful go limp as unstrung puppets, deserted for days at a time by Robert. They flounder in an alien French context, struggling to find meaning in a world they no longer understand.
The Deputy Minister of Culture, Lucy, now appears. But they soon learn she is no longer the Deputy Minister of Culture. Why? No answers. She is now just Lucy and she has a plan for them. As she begins to talk, her hands arc and dip like petals in the wind. “I have a friend from Stockholm who works for the UN here,” she tells them all. “She can get you to Sweden. Kenya is no longer safe for you. Amin’s people are everywhere. Even here … in our own government.”
She continues. “You will be welcome. They can provide funds for you as refugees. The Ford Foundation will arrange another grant for all of you to get there. They are simply awaiting your application. You have to decide though whether you are willing to leave Africa. If you don’t go, I think your lives will be in real and constant danger. If you do, I am not sure that the theatre company will survive. It has to be your choice.”
“What about the three of us who are still missing?” says Joro.
Robert is reassuring. He urges them to take the offer. “It is a way out for you,” says Robert. “I must stay here. There is an active anti-Amin underground in Kenya. I am already part of it.”
“How can we go so far away without you, Robert? It will definitely be the end of the company,” says Charles.
“You carry me with you,” Robert replies evenly. “You are everything we have accomplished together. We can all be killed any moment here. You know I am right. Amin wants us dead. We are not the same today as we were two months ago. We have to survive as people first of all. If we do not survive personally, Abafumi cannot survive. I will join you when I can. I will send my wife and children to be with you.”
“Why did this happen so suddenly?” asks Charles.
“Amin found out that one of our sources of funding was the American government,” says Roert after a long pause. “I’m sorry. I should have told you earlier.”
“So it was CIA money,” says Charles. “We thought so.”
“You will be killed,” Robert repeats. “I have not wanted to tell you this. But you need to know. I only just found out that Susi, Willy, and Obusi were all caught by the police the night we left. They were taken to Amin’s palace.” Robert pauses. “Their bodies were identified later. I’m sorry. Every artist in Uganda is suspect now in the government’s eyes. Especially us.”
The company is inconsolable. For their friends. For themselves.
Charles wonders if word of Abafumi’s American support will get his Father in trouble too. Wonders whether he can still get money to his parents.
The next day, Robert makes arrangements for Abafumi’s departure. And quickly disappears in the underground.
“And where is Mr. Serumaga?” asks the Ford Foundation official who has been sent to their hotel to collect full names for identification papers and visas.
“He will join us later,” says Charles, following Robert’s precise instructions.
A week later, Charles and Joro are called to the Ford Foundation offices. “There is a problem with Stockholm,” they are told. “But we can send you all to Rome. I am sure that it will be sorted out reasonably quickly. There will be temporary accommodation there. Ford officials in Italy will be in touch with you as soon as Sweden is cleared.”
No one knows how to reach Robert now, not even his own wife. They bring the offer back to the group. Unspoken fears pass between them. From Beth to Mara, Joro to Charles, Kiri to Kasa. They have always taken decisions with Robert. Now they are about to act on their own and they are not comfortable.
“I am sure Robert will contact us there. He will know where we are in Rome and he will know what we should do,” says Joro.
“If we get into trouble, we can always visit the Pope,” adds Charles with inspired timing. His joke breaks the tension in the air.
Three days later, air tickets to Rome are handed out.
“These are one way tickets,” says Beth.
“You’re only going one way for now,” the Ford official says.
Twenty-four hours later, Ford Foundation officials escort them to the airport. Each is given an envelope with another fifteen hundred dollars in it. They are told that they might be able to perform if they are in Rome for any length of time. They are told that the Italian press has been informed that the company is rehearsing a new production in Rome. Hesitantly, they board the Alitalia flight.
Charles is the last to climb the portable stairs shoved against the plane on the tarmac. He stops half way up, turns back and gulps in a last breath of African air. It is filled with nasty fumes that quickly bring him back to reality.
6. LEAP OF FAITH
LIKE THE ACTORS THEY TRULY ARE, they once again assume their role as an important theatre company.
At the Rome airport, bustling officials in shiny suits jostle before them, impatient as jousters in newly polished armour. In the VIP lounge, they are confronted by journalists, some from the Vatican newspaper, all very excited at the arrival of major artists from Uganda.
The next day they are hailed as Christian heroes who have tried to save Uganda from the perils of Amin’s Muslim autocracy. Large print blares their arrival: “Holy Warriors Seek Asylum.”
“Spearing the Infidel. ”
“Africa Exiles Its Artists. ”
“We don’t need this kind of publicity,” says a worried Joro. “What we need is anonymity.”
“Well, we are in the bosom of the Catholic world,” answers Beth. “Their embracing of us as artists and Christians is hardly surprising.”
“Let’s hope Amin doesn’t read Italian,” says Charles, prompting laughter.
The stories themselves are political and religious. Very little is written about Abafumi per se. Everything they had so carefully stated about the theatre company is omitted.
“The press writes what they want their readers to hear.” Joro is irritated. “Why do we even bother with our version of things?”
A day later a telegram arrives from Robert: I have told the UN of your plight. You are to be recognized as political refugees prevented from performing your art in your homeland. That is the reason for the publicity on your arrival. I requested it. Please believe I am watching and always working for you. Have faith.
“He is still pulling the strings,” Kiri tells them with some pride. Her words seem to Charles both triumphant and fragile. He sees how alone she is, hovering and hesitant in the plant-filled hotel lobby, green shade dappling her through flimsy lace curtains. A bright, timid fish in a decorated bowl.
A week later another telegram from Robert: Abafumi has a contract to perform at Teatro Tenda, a huge tent in a park. I have promised them Renga Moi and Amarykiti. Rehearse as best you can. Recast the plays without me. You will be contacted about rehearsal space.
Indeed, the maestro is still watching over them, giving them this chance to be professionals again, instead of fugitives.
With a reduced cast and a mere ten days before they are to open, Charles, Joro, and Kasa spearhead a valiant effort to recover the essence of their art. To find it with so much of their theatre family missing: Willy, Susi, Obusi. To recover without Robert who is clearly now living in danger. They rehearse a truncated Renga Moi, but it lurches without limbs. Too many significant lines, dramatic moments have been surgically removed.
Kiri makes Nakazzi’s agony her own. Then starts to cry. The rehearsal stops.
Charles watches in silence as the women all throw arms around one another and begin a long, loud keening. Like ancient fates, drawing in the rest of the company to grieve with them.
They need to mourn, he knows, but they also need to move on.
The park they perform i
n pulses with drums and chants, the variously created rhythms that push the audience into unknown territory. When Nakazzi’s babes die each night, there is always a collective gasp. When Renga Moi executes the Priest, audiences register shock.
On alternate nights, Amarykiti sears them with anger and sorrow.
At every rendering, the emotional core of their stories deepens, forcing the reduced company to accept that it can still make a difference. And that somehow Robert is still with them. They hear that he might even appear for the last show. But he does not.
The day after their final performance, the company gathers for a meeting. A worried-looking Italian in a dark suit also arrives, saying, “Robert has sent me to take care of you.”
“Take care of us,” says Charles. “How? Who are you?”
“My name is Gianni. I am a local employee at the American Embassy. I can’t tell you any more. Only that in an hour, a van will be waiting for you all downstairs. Please, I must ask you to pack your bags. You are being moved to another hotel. Believe me, it is for your own safety.”
When Gianni leaves, the company erupts.
“So what’s this about?” sputters Joseph. “I’m starting to feel like a puppet yanked this way and that. Robert just pulls strings when it suits him.”
“I’m sure he’s looking out for our future,” Kiri insists.
“We must trust him,” Charles says, trying to wrestle down his own doubts.
An hour later, they are all in the lobby with their bags.
Disgruntled in the silence of the van, they feel like criminals being punished for someone else’s crime. The mood worsens as they bump along back streets through one slum after another. Noisy, narrow alleys hung with balconies of shrill housewives and flapping laundry. When the driver finally stops at their new hotel, the Villa Gloria, they hesitantly step out and into the musty foyer.
The manager, short and sharp-eyed, answers questions in a rudimentary English. He points up a flight of worn dark steps and, whistling through two gold capped teeth, reads off their room numbers, adding that they will be using shared baths on their floors. And that they are now two to a room.
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