Let's Tell This Story Properly

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  Now she walked to him the picture of a rural damsel in distress—a makyala dress, plastic shoes, luggage in plastic bags and a teary story. He did not pretend to believe her. To him she was one of those girls who only dated a man if he spent money on them, who at the point when the relationship should transition to the next level, fled after ‘eating’ your money. He told Poonah to go back and wait for him outside the shop while he finished working.

  Mutaayi knew how to break a girl. He finished work two hours later. By then Poonah was so desperate she was ready to pay for the meal, Pride Theatre and for much more if Mutaayi got her off the dark street. The following morning, he asked: ‘You’re going to your aunt for what? How is a woman twenty miles away going to help you find a job in the city? Stay here, where I can help you.’

  At first, he took her for job interviews but waited to drop her home afterwards. He gave her money for everything she needed while she job-hunted and Poonah got comfortable. But before she got a job, she got pregnant and Mutaayi told her to forget working.

  Pregnancy broke the remnants of her spirit and she became dependent on him. She received his money gratefully and accepted his rules. She had three children, cooked and maintained a stress-free home environment for him. Their ten-year relationship ended when Mutaayi found her stash of birth control pills and punished her so severely she could not go to the police to say it was not him. It was back in 1992 when those feminist lawyers, FIDA, were scary to a certain kind of man. By the time she came out of hospital, they were all over the case brandishing words like battered woman, domestic violence, internalisation. Poonah told them, ‘You put him away, my children will suffer,’ but they were not moved. That was how she ended up peddling tea and chapati along Channel Street, where Carl Mpiima Watson found her.

  Now, Poonah rolled her eyes skyward. Tears are a jerk. Sometimes they don’t warn you before they spoil your cheery facade. She sucked her teeth and blamed Britain for making her soft. She looked across at Nnamuli and wondered What are the odds? Here was Nnamuli—expensive education, sheltered life, daughter of a cabinet minister—doing the same job. Hadn’t she become a lawyer or doctor or an engineer like her kind were supposed to? Then it dawned on her that perhaps Nnamuli was at university doing a second or third degree. She had that aura of this situation is temporary that you saw on middle-class Ugandan students doing menial jobs in Britain.

  Poonah looked down. Let Nnamuli see her in her own time.

  The wrestlers were mountains. They were in character—bouncing, flexing, rasping and huffing—to the kids’ delight. They signed autographs. Passengers jumped out of queues to take pictures, which they were forced to erase, and the kids cried at the meanness of it. The first one to use the metal detector walked through sideways: his shoulders were too wide. He had to bend because he was too tall. He had a roguish sense of humour: he walked to the shorter man on the frisk—barely five feet tall—and spread out his hands. His wingspan was as wide as Christ the Redeemer above Rio de Janeiro. In a Batman voice he rasped, ‘I don’t need a weapon to take down a plane: my arms are my weapon. Are you gonna put me in handcuffs?’

  Poonah looked up. Nnamuli was staring: This can’t be true. Poonah smiled: Yes, it’s me, Mpony’obugumba Nnampiima, the real one! Nnamuli’s face was so sickened with shock, she was ready to throw up right there in the search area. Poonah’s eyes said Isn’t Britain quite the leveller?

  Poonah went back to frisking.

  Most PIA passengers travelled in large family groups, lots of bags, excited kids and grown-ups wearing the beleaguered look of a people under suspicion. The men and women so looked you in the eyes to see your prejudice that you had to smile to reassure them that you were more intelligent than that. Unfortunately, most women passengers were pulled because bangles set off the detectors. It was impossible to convince them that they were not targeted. When metal detectors went off they pointed to the bangles: ‘Mine’re pure gold. They don’t go off.’ And when you insisted, they became suspicious: ‘You’ve set the machine off remotely to search us.’

  Poonah, aware that Nnamuli was watching, explained patiently that gold was still a metal: it sets the machine off, that there was no way of setting the machine off remotely. But they were not having it. No gold-wearing passenger ever wanted to hear that gold was not above metal detection.

  When she looked up again, Nnamuli had pulled a bag. It belonged to a family of three generations—grandkids, parents and grandparents. Unfortunately, all the women had set off the machine. The grandfather and his sons stood away from the body search area, watching livid but helpless as Poonah and Alison frisked the women everywhere. The women, especially the grandmother, were scandalised. She gave Poonah a sour Even you, joining them in humiliating us! look that minorities gave each other.

  Poonah had had enough of the frisk. As the family walked towards Nnamuli on bag search, she swapped and went to load bags into the X-ray. She kept an eye on Nnamuli to see how she handled the irate family.

  The grandfather asked his family to pick up the rest of the bags and step back while he dealt with the bag search. After the preliminary questions, Nnamuli pulled a two-litre bottle of semi-skimmed milk from the bag.

  ‘It’s for drinking on the flight,’ the old man said.

  ‘You can’t take liquids into the cabin.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It could be a liquid bomb disguised as milk.’

  Poonah smiled. You don’t say bomb to a Muslim passenger in an airport. You stick to It’s not allowed.

  The man opened the lid, drank some milk. ‘Would I drink it if it was dangerous?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s the rule.’

  The man opened the lid again, but this time lifted the bottle up and slowly poured the milk over his head. It flowed down his face, his white tunic and onto the floor. His family stared. Passengers stared. Airport staff glanced at each other and carried on unfazed. Nnamuli shrank. Poonah did not hide her satisfaction.

  As soon as he put the empty bottle down, the cleaners kicked into full gear. Yellow WET FLOOR signs were put in place. Mops danced: We’re on top of this. Someone whispered, ‘Imagine sitting next to him all the way to Karachi.’

  When the family left, Hannah, the team leader, came to Nnamuli and commended her: ‘I was watching; you did everything by the rules.’

  Poonah looked away.

  • • •

  It was ten in the morning when Poonah went to the restroom as part of her hour’s break. When she returned, she was sent to patrol duty-free shops, boarding gates, air bridges and the ramp. She did not come back to the search area until one o’clock. By then, the Air Jamaica passengers had been cleared and tucked away at their boarding gate. The area was quiet. Only a third of the ASOs remained. Nnamuli was chatting to other new ASOs. Her body language said I’m going to be just fine.

  As Poonah settled on bag search, Liam from her group popped up behind her and asked, ‘Do you know the new girl?’

  Poonah looked at Nnamuli and shook her head.

  ‘Apparently, she’s Ugandan: her name’s Dr Mrs Jingle.’

  Poonah doubled over. Delicious. It was so typically Ugandan middle-class to roll out all the pre-nominal letters to establish rank.

  Poonah said, ‘Yes, Jjingo is a Ugandan name.’

  Gossip was rife in the search area about Dr Mrs Jingle. Of course, no one believed Nnamuli was a doctor. She had not realised that in Britain marriage was not an honour but a lifestyle choice. Poonah was tempted to mention that Nnamuli’s father was a cabinet minister, then the ASOs would treat her to the full combo of contempt, disdain and disgust: Her father is one of those greedy politicians who engorge themselves on public funds while their own people suffer. But Poonah held back; it would not ring true with Nnamuli doing this kind of job.

  By 3.30, passenger flow had dwindled to a trickle. Three of the five X-ray machines were shut down. The remaining ASOs spread out on the two machines around the main entrance. Nnamuli and Poonah e
nded up on the same machine. Poonah bristled.

  At half past four, a woman, twenty-something, hair dyed green, large floral cloth bag, slender, smiley, airport-savvy, walked in. After being frisked, she thanked the ASO. As she got into her shoes, Nnamuli asked for a random bag search. The passenger smiled: ‘Knock yourself out.’

  As she emptied the bag, Nnamuli pulled out a gadget. From where Poonah stood, it looked like hair tongs in a sheath. But as Nnamuli put it down, she flicked a switch and the gadget bobbed.

  Someone elbowed Poonah. ‘Go help your friend.’

  Poonah ignored the presumptuous your friend and looked again. She realised what the gadget was and giggled but did nothing. Luckily, the passenger deftly switched the gadget off without revealing it. Nnamuli was blissfully oblivious.

  When she was done with the other contents, Nnamuli lifted the gadget (all gadgets had to be swabbed for traces of drugs and explosives) and asked the passenger: ‘What is this?’

  At first the woman looked at her like Are you taking the piss? But then she shrugged. ‘You’re the one searching my bag: open it and see.’ Nnamuli unzipped the sheath as if peeling a banana, then she shrieked and threw the vibrator into the tray. A female ASO stepped in and took the tray to the farthest search table. She beckoned the passenger and went through the bag again, toy covered from public view. The ASO swabbed the bag and tested it for narcotics and explosives. Satisfied, she passed it to the passenger with effusive apologies.

  When she was gone, the stunned air turned to anger. First, Nnamuli’s indiscretion—she shouldn’t have exposed the toy. Part of their training dealt with how to handle sex toys discreetly. Secondly, Nnamuli’s reaction—unprofessional. Hannah arrived and pulled Nnamuli out of the search area and into the manager’s office.

  The air took a turn for the worse.

  A sense that Nnamuli had exposed the whole British culture to ridicule crept over the search area. Now the other ASOs avoided looking at Poonah, like she had conspired with Nnamuli to embarrass everyone. Normally, they would say You’d think she’d have the common sense to check in her toys, but this time it was ‘People are entitled to carry whatever they want.’

  Poonah had to make a decision. Either she condemned Nnamuli and joined the outraged brigade and muted the African/British binary, or she kept quiet and appeared complicit. She could not fake outrage, and kept quiet.

  When Nnamuli returned, she walked across the search area and joined the machine opposite. The ASOs standing closest to her walked off and joined Poonah’s machine. The others turned their backs to her. ASOs arriving for evening shifts were told about the incident and they stared at Nnamuli. There were whispers of ‘Apparently, her name is Dr Mrs Jingle…don’t like the look of her.’

  It was like watching a plant being sprayed with weedkiller. Poonah started to get agitated. You know when you’ve fought with your sibling and a friend takes your side but hurts your sibling more than necessary? Poonah had laughed, but now she wanted to say Too much!

  Finally, Poonah caught Nnamuli’s eye and flicked a sympathetic hand. Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of it, maybe Nnamuli realised that she had dragged Poonah’s arse into it, but her head dropped and she cracked. Poonah rushed over and grabbed her—‘You can’t cry in the search area’—and steered her towards the toilets. Hannah saw them and hurried over. She took Nnamuli and said, ‘Leave her to me, Poonah. Go back to your post.’

  ‘She genuinely didn’t know what it was.’

  ‘I know.’

  Hannah led Nnamuli to the manager’s office.

  The air in the search area turned again. Now the ASOs were uncertain. Would their reaction be seen as racist? They asked Poonah, ‘She’ll be alright, won’t she…It’s a tough job this one… We come from different cultures… to be fair, who wants to touch her bits, I mean!’

  Nnamuli did not come back to the search area. Rumour had it that she was given the rest of the day off.

  • • •

  Hannah let Poonah and her group off the search area at 5.00 p.m. for their third and final break. Since their shift ended an hour after that, she told them not to come back. Nnamuli was in the restroom when Poonah arrived. ‘Are you into cigs?’ she asked. ‘This is the smokers’ room.’

  Nnamuli began crying afresh. Poonah sat down beside her and dropped the Mancunian twang.

  ‘Don’t worry: it’s just herd mentality. ASOs can be childish.’

  ‘I’m not coming back.’

  ‘Why? Because you made a mistake and they overreacted?’

  Nnamuli sobbed.

  ‘Are you a part-timer or a full-timer?’

  ‘Part-time—twenty hours a week.’

  ‘Tsk’—Poonah dropped English altogether—‘that’s nothing. Stop acting spoilt. Do you need the money or not?’

  Nnamuli sighed.

  ‘Then quit playing. Let me tell you about this place. You come, you do your job, you keep your head down. Carry a lot of thank yous, I am sorrys and excuse mes. The way they make mistakes is not the way we make the same mistakes. Be careful, you fall out with one of them, they all turn against you—it’s called closing ranks. Graduates don’t do these kinds of jobs; don’t tell people about your degrees. Play dumb; dumb protects you. They’re gossipy; don’t tell them things about yourself. They turn just like that—they turn on each other too. Don’t tell them how rich you are back home: they won’t believe you. When they ask Do you like this country, say It’s fantastic. When they ask Do you plan to stay? say Of course not! They ask Would you like to become British? say I am proud to be Ugandan. Finally, they have this thing of being nasty very politely: learn the skill.’

  Nnamuli sighed. ‘Is it as mad every day in the search area?’

  ‘Mad? Apart from the milk incident and your reaction to the…whatever, that’s every day. You’ll get used. It’s busy up to the end of September. Then it gets quiet until two weeks before Christmas, when things get manic. It gets a little busy in January with skiers and winter sports, but dies down again. Listen, you need to keep busy in this place: busy keeps your mind off things, busy is overtime.’

  ‘Are you working tomorrow?’

  ‘4 to 10 in the morning.’

  Nnamuli checked her roster. ‘Same.’

  ‘That’s good. If you want, I can talk to Hannah so you’re moved into my group. Then we’ll be on at the same time.’

  ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘Sure. Hannah is nice.’

  Nnamuli sniffed. ‘After this kind of pain, earning just £6.10 an hour, someone back home rings and says Can you send me £100?’

  Poonah laughed. She wanted to say Your family is wealthy; who would send such a message, but there were more important things to tell Nnamuli. She asked, ‘Do you drive…I can drop you… Are you at Manchester Met or Manchester Uni? I can’t make up my mind where to do my BA.’

  At 5.50 p.m., they swiped out from their shift and made their way to the car park. As they got to her car, Poonah clicked the doors open. ‘It’s a mess,’ she apologised as she threw her rucksack into the back seat. When she turned the key in the ignition, ‘Something Inside So Strong’ by Labi Siffre burst out. ‘Ooops,’ Poonah said casually as she turned the volume down, ‘I didn’t realise how loud I had it,’ but inside she was remembering how Nnamuli’s parents had got in their cars that night.

  ‘This version sounds African,’ Nnamuli mused.

  ‘It was written by a Nigerian.’ Poonah reversed out of the space and drove to the barrier. She removed her pass from the lanyard and swiped it. ‘Son of an immigrant.’ The barrier opened.

  ‘It doesn’t mean the same when Kenny Rogers sings it.’

  Poonah kept quiet for the rest of the journey and the air became bloated.

  When Poonah dropped her outside her door, Nnamuli thanked and thanked her.

  ‘I’ll pick you up at three in the morning,’ Poonah said. ‘I prefer to get to the airport at least half an hour before my shift starts.’

  ‘Isn�
�t that too early?’

  ‘Eyajj’okola teyebakka,’ she snapped. ‘Being in Britain is the proverbial prostituting: you know you came to work, why get in bed with knickers on?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Nnamuli agreed, too quickly.

  When Nnamuli stepped inside her house, Poonah waved and drove away. She had decided to wait until Nnamuli trusted her entirely and then to ask Do you know what happened to me that night?

  Malik’s Door

  THIS TIME THE DECISION TO LEAVE came like a cramp, sudden and excruciating. Katula was standing in the corridor staring at Malik’s bedroom door when she felt her heart curl into itself: I’m leaving! But then, just as quickly, the conviction faded. The same heart now palpitated, After all he’s done for you? But the mind insisted—You’re leaving—and she mouthed the words as if Malik’s door had laughed at her.

  She turned away and walked past her bedroom towards the end of the corridor, where their warm clothing hung. She sat down on the chair and started to pull on her winter boots. For the past two years, since she got British citizenship, she had swung with indecision like a bell around a cow’s neck: nkdi—I’m leaving, nkdo—how can I leave? Nkdi—this time I am going, Nkdo—going where?

  The problem was that Malik had outfoxed her. But it was not the cut-throat outsmarting of certain marriages Katula knew back home. In this was kindness blended with concealment, generosity mixed with arrogance. The biggest obstacle was her empathy. In Malik’s position, perhaps she would have done the same. These things haunted her every time she tried to be strong. Strength in these circumstances was ruthless.

  As she pulled on her gloves, the words of her mother, a cynic whose children each had a different father, came back to her.

  ‘All things we humans do are selfish,’ she once said.

  ‘Even love?’ Katula had asked.

  ‘Kdt, especially love! It hides its selfishness behind selflessness: I got tired of pretending.’