What annoyed me most was that I could not see history in the making. I could not see decrees dropping from Amin’s lips as I had anticipated when I first heard that this technology had penetrated the walls of our pagoda. I longed to see Amin’s face, his demeanor, his mood, as the decrees which influenced the lives of millions of people left his body like magic incantations. I had visions of a nervous Moses trembling as he struck the water with his stick to create a way for the children of Israel. How did Amin differ from that Biblical figure?
I now and then entered the living room on redundant missions and took a few furtive looks. Amin’s face filled the whole screen, and if there was any fear, any inkling of the gravity of the decisions he was airing, it did not show. His was the face of a master, a magician safe in the knowledge that his wand was omnipotent.
After the television, Serenity decided to buy himself a house of dreams: he purchased a library of books from a desperate Indian man who had been rejected by the British, the Canadians and the Americans and was preparing to go to Pakistan. The dreams came with their own history of violence: half the collection belonged to a man who, weeks before, had eaten rat poison, slashed his wrists and bled to death among his books, ruining quite a few, which had to be burned. Serenity’s new acquisition arrived on the back of the puke-yellow Postal Service truck which had brought him to the city. The driver still sported Elvis sideburns, and when he complained that the chests were too heavy, his voice boomed as though it had passed through a fat clay pot.
Serenity discovered Oliver Twist, Madame Defarge, the Artful Dodger and many more ghosts in the Dickensian jungle, but it was the American jungle that stole his heart. American writers, with their migrant’s fascination and obsession with money, success and power, spirited him off into a world of dreams where likeable rogues had it all. Ensconced in their penthouses, they cut deals, sipped champagne, participated in orgies with perfect-bodied nymphos and indulged in excesses just this side of madness. They gambled, raced sports cars, flew private jets and went on lust-sodden cruises in the Caribbean. Serenity lapped it all up and turned it over and over again in his head, angry that it was all out of his reach.
Serenity was shocked to discover that character was not a monolithic rock which stopped moving somewhere in one’s late twenties, anchored by a wife and children, policed by friends, relatives, colleagues, extended family and strangers. He found himself in flux, and he became aware of unreleased sexual energy in his body. Temptation, liberated by the turbulence of recent events, coursed through him like malarial bacteria waiting to explode into full-blooded fever. He could not remember the last time he had been in bed with a woman whose body attracted him with its power, grace and elegance, combining sight, smell and touch to create a feast of sensory satisfaction.
What was he supposed to make of Loverboy? Was he the reincarnation of the man who had seduced Serenity’s mother and led her to her death? If not that, what did the young man represent? Youth, freedom, innocent flirtation? Or uncommitted love? Serenity was swept back momentarily to his bachelor days when he had raided a few marital beds and partaken of ungratified sexual reserves there, free to come and go, free of responsibility for the women, free to give and take what he wanted without a thought for tomorrow. He resolved to watch the Boy carefully. At the same time, he remembered his wife’s bridal aunt, seeing her rise from the tombs of unpursued possibility with the supercilious grace of a bored goddess.
The imminent departure of the Indians kicked off furious rows in many an office. At that time an office bully lured Serenity into a trap.
“Do you believe that all the Indians are going to leave?” the bully badgered.
“Yes.”
“Catholic, put your money where your mouth is. Some of us believe that you are just pretending, pussyfooting as usual.”
“They have to leave. Amin is serious.”
“Amin can’t do that. The economy will collapse. Britain will bombard him from the air. He can’t take the chance on an embargo. He is also afraid of America: American warships are stationed in the Indian Ocean very near here. My bet is that a reprieve is imminent within a month. Amin is just scaring these people, trying to show them who is the boss. He probably wants more money from Britain and America.”
Why wouldn’t Britain and America succeed in stopping Amin? Why wouldn’t Amin back down? Serenity had no foolproof answer. He could only trust his hunch, but Cold War politics and the fight against Communism being so hot and unpredictable, should he? He decided to go for broke.
“Britain and America won’t intervene,” he said bravely.
“They will shit on him till he suffocates and relents.”
“No, they won’t.”
“Amin will be hit so hard he will even call back the few Indians who have already left.”
“No, he won’t,” Serenity insisted.
“I give you five hundred dollars if you win; you give me the same amount when you lose.” The man licked his index finger, passed it across his throat in a beheading motion and pointed it in the air, gesturing his oath.
All eyes were on Serenity now. Five hundred dollars was a lot of money for a civil servant: if he lost, he would be in trouble for months. The books and the television and other things would have to go. Why should he cave in to this bully? Self-respect? The thrill of tottering on the brink? The indulgent fantasy of doing what people did in books and got away with? He rolled his head like a calf trapped in a quagmire. He struck the table: once for accepting the challenge, twice to vent disgust, thrice for courting Lady Luck. Much to his dismay, the bully pulled out of his front pocket a typed agreement on yellow paper. It had been a setup. He signed the paper, and a neutral party pocketed it.
It was the fear of losing his bet and the possibility of Amin changing his mind that kept Serenity lecturing Padlock on international politics, global relations, the world economy and the strengths and weaknesses of Western capitalism, caustic subjects which filled her with bile. Padlock tolerated the barrage only because they had agreed never to break the sacred code of despotic harmony in front of the children. By delving into the murky waters of Cold War politics, with its polarization, pragmatism and reincarnation as the Scramble for Africa, Serenity hoped that fate would pick up the tremors in his voice, the fear in his thorax and the fire in his gut, and side with him.
Padlock, on the other hand, felt like shutting her husband’s irritating mouth with a vicious slap or a whack with her guava switch. On and on he went, damaging the secret power of despotic silence, committing the unforgivable sin of interrupting the news reader, postponing night prayers and the holy rosary, and shattering her peace of mind.
This relentless assault on her mental faculties by Serenity’s obsession with politics reminded her of one crucial matter: her divine duty to break me. She was setting the stage for the first major explosion. She built up an index of misdemeanors, which she recited in full every time she was dissatisfied with my conduct. These days she left many of my sins unpunished. Her tone took on the truculent whine of gathering disaster. She kept on reporting my misdemeanors to Serenity, who, sadly for her, was so wrapped up in the ramifications of the wager that he could not honor his end of the bargain by taking immediate physical action. The more he disappointed her, the more determined she became to see my day of destruction. She started reporting every other evening, at the same time, just before the all-important eight o’clock news, when the stinking antics of the box irritated Serenity and caused a lull in his political soliloquies.
One afternoon, after most of the Indians had gone and the bully had paid Serenity one hundred dollars, the one and only payment he made, the puke-yellow Uganda Postal Service truck returned. This time the tailboard spilled forth a fridge-cum-oven, a mighty spring bed, a box of black tea cozies which were in fact Afro wigs, a few other bits and pieces, and something which greatly fascinated me. It was two-legged like a billboard, had a rectangular shining face and was so burnished and smooth that one could see on
e’s face in it. I watched the driver’s hairy hands carefully to see if his palms became wet after touching the gleaming surface. With bated breath I waited for him to wipe his hands on his khaki overalls, but in vain. A smile on my face, I went near Serenity, hoping to touch the object in order to sate my curiosity, but Serenity just growled and said, “If you touch it …”
The reverence with which the new imports were handled made it clear that they were dear, much dearer than the stinking Toshiba or Serenity’s suede shoes. I could hardly camouflage my interest as the shiny object was being installed in the fastness of the despotic bedroom.
The hour after the truck’s and Serenity’s departures passed with grinding sloth. I kept watching the clouds—dusky, foamy horses with heads jammed into each other’s rear ends—as they slid across the sky. Was it going to rain?
Padlock was neither in the Command Post nor in the toilet, which led me to conclude that she had gone to the shops to buy cotton, chiffon and other materials for dressmaking. Loverboy had not appeared, and it was too late for his visit. The shitters were either busy with menial tasks or wrapped up in play. This was the time to storm the walls of my humiliation and walk the floor kissed daily or every other day by my knees as I worshipped at the altar of despotic power. This was the time for me to enter the shrine of despotic slumber, on my feet like a pirate taking an island, and, like a conqueror, grab the treasures I desired. This time there would be no one to make me check my step, my manner, my tone of voice, my conduct. I was going to be the lord of the chamber of despotic decree, dreams, love, child-making, nocturnal debate and hidden conflicts. This was my coup d’état, my riposte at my tormentors. I was going to open their drawers and boxes, and examine their clothes and jewelry, and see if they had dirty little books filled with smudged secrets. The magnet at the heart of this putsch was the glittering object. It had razored the darkness at the center of my fear with its lightning swords, and the concomitant blood of courage had birthed this coup, this rebirth of my old days of power.
I stormed past the Toshiba, its pale case dimly beckoning and obliging. The soles of my feet bounced on the hairs of the carpet, whose thickness was alive with the dust that made stiff-brushing it a stone-rolling ordeal. “You will clean it till I tell you to stop,” I could hear Padlock croaking. I brushed past her ghost, which never forgave Grandma for dying before a Hoover could be bought, those resources having been diverted toward her burial costs. Serenity had since refused to buy the machine.
I pushed the door before which I had trembled when I heard Padlock’s plan to break me, and I was soon inside her bedroom. It was in semi-darkness, as if the walls were bursting with untold secrets. The old bed was bare, stripped naked, its cone-shaped springs facing the ceiling like empty funnels. I sat on the springs, eliciting a few metallic squeaks. The bed resembled Serenity’s bachelor bed of old conquests. The springs and the frame cut into my backside. I stood up and turned my attention to the new bed. The thick, prickly blanket looked snakelike in its red and brown patchy magnificence. Face taut with excitement, I ran my fingers across the blanket, static electricity crackling. The silky bulk of the pillow felt like the coat of a sow at mating time, just before misdirected semen jetted over it. On this pillow heads full of horny dreams rested as the despots, and the Indians before them, mated. A stuffy, woody smell floated on the air, combining with loose, lewd dreams to foster a mounting tension in my loins.
Padlock had an intriguing reading lamp: the shade was a black-dotted yellow cone, the stand the effigy of a famous white woman, her pleated skirt billowing round her waist as though she were standing on a fan, and a cheeky full-lipped smile on her face. There she was, this silver-screen veteran, discarded by departing Indians, adopted by the despots. I prodded and stroked her behind, the incongruous obscenity of her presence filling the air with refracted sexual forces. I prodded her behind one more time and moved on.
I brought my nose very close to the glittering object at the head of the new bed. I was disappointed because it smelled like shoe polish, its oily tang lingering on my palate. Succumbing to tactile temptation, I stretched out my hand and touched the gleaming surface, its dry smoothness, the imagined smoothness of Lusanani’s backside. I closed my eyes and explored the very cool, very smooth surface, my fingers going deeper and deeper into imaginary orifices, my imagination’s eye peeking under the sheet at slick dilated lips. I stretched across the thick pillow, and it moved under me like the back of a sow, and my hand reached the extreme end of the object, very near the wall. The sensation of swimming in a dark pool, warm and slick with swine sperm, was intoxicating. I got the feeling that the Lamp Lady, Nantongo and Lusanani were sitting on my stomach, squeezing a thick liquid out of my loins. As I turned on my back, I saw the box of wigs. One wig was sitting on top of the box like a hen on its eggs. The hairs called back memories of Aunt Tiida’s pubic hair. On closer scrutiny, though, the wig was more like myriad black caterpillars sewn together into one monster. I turned to the glittering board, the pressure in my loins more palpable. What was beneath this glittering magnificence, this slick dryness?
Using my thumbnail, I attacked the edge of the board. I worked slowly, trying to attain a good rhythm, but got nowhere. I needed an implement. I thought of fetching a nail or a knife, but changed my mind. I didn’t want to leave scratches or betray my tracks. I had to use my fingernail, but with better technique. I wedged my thumbnail between the veneer and the glue and the frame. A piece of veneer as big as a man’s fingernail broke off. Beneath the veneer was mere wood! Dull brown, long-grained wood! Sweat broke out on my back: What was I going to do with the broken piece? A dull, anticlimactic feeling assailed me, momentarily stalling panic.
I licked the glued side of the splinter and attempted to paste it back in place. Was there no proper glue in the house? There was a tube of solution used to patch bicycle tubes. A bolt of elation shot through me: I was going to get away with the invasion, the damage and the discovery that below the glitter was banal dullness. I trembled as I had trembled when I thought that Padlock’s baby was going to fall through the rectangular latrine hole. Once again I was ahead of her.
A soaring sensation overtook me. I was soaring into safety’s bosom, swimming through currents of warm air as thick as morning mist. At that moment a furious palm swept hot air into my face. Two fingernails sank into my lower lip, carefully avoiding my lethal teeth. This was a novelty, for Padlock was a celebrated ear puller. Maybe she was so excited by the occasion that she could hardly contain herself, let alone stick to normal procedure.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” This woman knew how to irritate me on all fronts: her pathetic country-western girlie whine, xeroxed from a white nun from her convent days, the same nun from whom she had inherited the little tremolos which she sprinkled piously on the last hymn every night, really got to me. If somebody was going to torture me, I preferred it to be done manfully or womanly, not childishly or girlishly, which made it feel as if I had been spat upon by a five-year-old brat.
“Ma-ma-my liip,” I said, trying to control my fears.
“Do you think you are still in the village, where they do things mindlessly?”
“No-no-nooo,” I replied for lack of a better answer, angry that I had betrayed myself. People didn’t do things mindlessly in the village. On the contrary, they conformed to norms. People did a lot of mindless things in the city but were too pretentious to admit it, and possibly too ashamed of themselves to face the fact. In the village Grandma or Grandpa would have told me straight away that the glittering thing was just a bloody headboard for a bloody bed, wooden, veneered, period. Here, in the jungle of pretensions and despotisms, adults acted dumbly, explained nothing, and at the same time believed they were doing a wonderful job. In the meantime, Padlock twisted my lip and slapped me again.
“Do you know what that bed cost?”
I kept quiet. My lip got twisted. Colored dribble mixed with tears ran down my chin.
“Remember thi
s: I am not your grandmother, and I am not going to spoil you like she did. I am going to set you straight. And I am going to hammer sense into your head even if it kills you.”
“Yes, yes, Grandma, Ma.”
“I am tired of your boorish behavior. I am tired of your rotten manners. I am tired of always getting shamed by your behavior, you hear?” A twist of the lip followed each of those statements, her eyes wells of black, yellow, red fires.
“Stop eating like an ox, you hear? Stop eating as though there was no tomorrow. Do you hear me? Stop it, stop it, stop it.”
This was very hard to bear: being reduced to the voracity of a healthy ox in a wire-thin voice was the ultimate insult. The eating habits of city dwellers totally disgusted me, especially when their deficiencies were veneered with brittle respectability. In the village you ate your fill, and more food was forced on you; all that on top of the sugarcanes, the jackfruit and the pawpaws eaten between meals. Here, on the contrary, you were expected to starve yourself or eat as little as possible, work like an ox and be proud of it all! If you wanted a sugarcane or a pawpaw or a jackfruit, you had to buy it. Since there was no money to throw around, many people could not afford to buy fruit, yet they acted as if you were supposed to be proud of that too. If city dwellers revelled in the masochism of measly meals, that was their business, but expecting me to adore it like a sacrament and to strive for it like a Holy Grail was totally unacceptable to me, because I knew better. If the despots found it hard to feed their children, it was their problem. Maybe they should not have migrated. Maybe they should have planned their births better. To expect me to play along, and to worship deficiency, was to insult my intelligence, especially when I was working so hard, freeing them from their filth. Consequently, I never forgave Padlock for the scalding transgressions of her tongue, the vicious excesses of her imagery and the despotic myopia of always seeing things from her side.
Abyssinian Chronicles Page 16
