We Are All Birds of Uganda

by Hafsa Zayyan

  What else is there to do, except wander and eat? The leaders of the centre have all of our names on white clipboards. They survey us over the boards with concerned eyes. I feel like a laboratory rat, and it does not help that I am being psychoanalysed. The counsellors come once a fortnight. Marie, a rotund white lady with a bouffant of blonde hair, has been assigned to my case. She sits down with me and asks questions and listens. I have never said much to her. I find it hard enough to write to my own family; how could I talk to her, a woman who is a world away from understanding? The only person I could ever really talk to was you.

  The third time Marie came, she asked me for the third time how I would feel about ‘going back to work’. I shrugged my shoulders, pulling on a thread that had just begun to fray on my tan coat (that’s the issue with wool – catch it once and it is never the same again).

  ‘I’ve got some exciting news, Hasan,’ she said gaily, folding and unfolding her legs like she was doing some kind of elaborate dance. Her hands started to fidget in her lap, whole body succumbing to the invisible rhythm. ‘There’s a job opening in Bruges. Six jobs in fact. Isn’t that exciting, Hasan?’

  She did not mean to be patronising, bless her good Christian heart, but it came across awfully so. I looked at her blankly for a few seconds, not saying anything. Her dance intensified. ‘What is the job?’ I finally asked.

  ‘Well, I’m very glad you asked, Hasan,’ she said. (I wonder if it is part of her training, but she has this terrible habit of saying my name at the end of every sentence. Perhaps she was taught that it would appear more personal, or maybe it is a way for her to remember her patients’ names. Either way, how she said it grated on me – Ha-San – the way all white people do.) ‘The fact that you asked tells me that you may well be interested. There’s no obligation, of course. It’s completely up to you whether you wish to take the job or not. Now I want to start by saying that I know it’s by no means what you’re used to, but you need to remember that it pays a salary, which you need right now. It’s a start – it’s not a forever job.’ She smiled at me encouragingly.

  Nothing is a forever job, Marie. Building and managing your own successful business is not a forever job.

  The role was at a canning factory. A fish-canning factory, to be more precise. It involved the processing and packing of fish into cans; operating machinery, conveyor belts and the like. I closed my eyes, imagining myself among the stench of raw fish, guts and eyes around me, gloved hands glistening with blood and grime; the sound of the machines chopping, pulsating, sealing at my command. Is this what our ginnery factory workers had felt like each day? I had never imagined what it might feel like to be a worker. Is this what I was destined to do now? I politely declined, and told Marie that they have been kind to me and I was grateful for that, but they should offer the job to someone else.

  All of the canning factory jobs went in the end: five to heads of families, one to a stateless man who was in Belgium alone. The stateless man’s family, like mine, had been scattered into the air and left to lie where they fell. His trade, like mine, had been entrepreneurship. But, unlike me, he sought to integrate. Every night he sat with a small teach-yourself book and practised Flemish. It is a strange language, and I do not know why he did it – nearly all of those who volunteer at the centre, and every person I have come across, speaks English. But he insisted on learning it. ‘Language is the most powerful tool of civilisation,’ he told me one evening, struggling with the pronunciation of one of the more knotty Flemish words. ‘It all starts with language. Learn the language, and you master a people.’

  The rest of us single men, we were restless. We did not want to take offers of jobs not just because we have never worked for someone else, but also because we were convinced that this was a purely temporary arrangement and that we would be leaving soon.

  Not too long after we arrived, a dozen of the families were offered new lives in Belgium: to become citizens, to have real homes. I watched with a certain melancholy as they packed up their few belongings and left. How lucky that they were together, that they could just be tossed from one place to another and create a new home. This can be done anywhere it seems; what matters is not where you are, but whom you are with. Then again, to have to settle in this cold and grey country … my heart aches for the warm colours of Uganda. Now that I am soon to be reunited with my family, will I be able to call England my home?

  Some nights I can almost feel my soul leaving my body with longing. It pushes at my ribcage, pummels my heart, yearning to escape. In my final session with Marie, she watched me clutch my chest and asked me what was wrong. The next thing I knew I was being kept in the local hospital overnight for ‘tests’. It is just that my soul is aching, I wanted to tell them. It wants to go home.

  19

  It is Thursday evening and Sameer only has three full days left in Kampala. Something is bothering him, crawling under his skin, coming to rest lightly on his chest. It is not an unfamiliar feeling. But it had faded while he was in Uganda. Perhaps it is the thought of going home that is giving him anxiety. He stretches out on the Shahs’ comfortable guest bed and opens WhatsApp.

  Sameer (21.49): Hey – are you around the rest of the week at all?

  An immediate response:

  Maryam (21.49): Hey!

  Followed by:

  Maryam (21.50): I’m actually working every day, including the weekend, sorry

  Oh. The creature on his chest digs in its heels and settles deeper. He had not imagined that he would not see her again, but now that seems like it might be the case, he feels deflated. He locks his phone, chucking it across the bed, and reaches for the bedside drawer where his grandfather’s letters are bundled. The days have passed so quickly in the company of the Shahs that he has barely found the time to be alone. But late at night, he has read three more of the letters, heart beating with exhilaration as his family’s history unfurls under the lamplight at his bedside, revealing itself to be multifaceted: a strange sensation of pride is mixed with unease. He had wondered whether he might talk to Maryam about what he’d read; apart from her, he has not told anyone about the letters. Now it seems he will have to process them alone.

  There is a knock at the door – ‘Come in!’ he yells, shoving the letter under his pillow. Aliyah stands in the doorway, skin slightly pink, wet hair hanging down her back.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘I just came out of the shower. I’m going out. Do you wanna come?’

  He looks at her: hair dripping, sultry green eyes, hip leaning against the door frame, one arm raised over her head to expose the soft curves of her figure. He imagines for a moment fucking her from behind, twisting her long hair around his wrist. But the image, fleeting, disappears as quickly as it comes, replaced by an abrupt feeling of emptiness. ‘Thanks,’ he says, ‘but I’ll give this one a miss. Have a good night.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Aliyah shrugs, flashes him a smile, turns on her heel and closes the door behind her.

  He scrambles across the bed to retrieve the letter; his hands find his phone, which is flashing a message.

  Maryam (21.55): When do you leave?

  Sameer (21.55): Monday

  Maryam (21.55): Do you want to meet for breakfast before I go to work tomorrow?

  He can’t help it; he’s grinning like an idiot.

  They meet at a rooftop crêperie within the exclusive suburb of Kololo where the Shahs live. For the first time, Sameer notices that people in the restaurant are staring at them openly. He wants to stare back, but he’s embarrassed by the fact that his awkwardness shows so clearly in the colour of his face. ‘People stare a lot here, huh?’ he whispers to Maryam as she takes a seat.

  She nods. ‘It’s strange to see a Ugandan and Asian couple.’

  ‘A couple?’ he repeats, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she says quickly (and he is unable to tell whether she is blushing), ‘people might – wrongly – assume …’

  He’d never g
iven it any thought before; even when Samah had married John – the first of his entire extended family to marry outside of their own race – the thought had not crossed his mind. But now, sitting here with Maryam, it strikes him that despite the fact that both sides of his family are East African Asian – his father’s Ugandan, his mother’s Kenyan, and between them at least a dozen siblings – none of them married black Africans. This was just the way things were and there had never been any reason to be surprised by it.

  ‘People don’t stare in London,’ he says after a pause, thinking of its familiar streets fondly. He could take her there and she’d be blown away by the mix of colours, the blacks the browns the yellows the peaches the whites.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she says sceptically.

  This question prompts a thought: would Maryam be stared at in London, as a black hijabi? Would they be stared at if they were seen walking down the street together? Is it easy enough for him to say that Londoners don’t stare because he’s never actually been in a situation that merited stares? Before he has the chance to say anything, the pancakes arrive, stacked high and topped with whipped cream.

  Thankful for the distraction, he changes the subject. ‘Is this place Ugandan-owned?’ he asks Maryam once the waitress has gone. In Mr Shah’s office, he has learned that Ugandans do not own the luxury lodges across the country. They are owned by foreign investors; managed by carefully sourced bright young Europeans desperate to get away from their stolid lives in Belgium or England or France and throw themselves into Africa with passion; staffed by a sample of the ever-smiling pool of the polite, docile local population.

  ‘I don’t know. But here in Kololo? I doubt it,’ she takes a mouthful of pancake.

  ‘Is it Asian-owned?’ he ventures. Maryam doesn’t know; she shrugs, and Sameer says, between mouthfuls, ‘The pancakes are really good.’

  She nods enthusiastically in response. There is a brief silence while they eat, and then Maryam says: ‘You know most of the Asians here are not like your family, right?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Most of them aren’t Asians who came back, you know, after ’72. Most of them have come here straight from South Asia for the first time.’

  He has seen these people in Nakasero market; the women in plain saris with plaits running down their backs, the men with fat moustaches and scummy flat sandals; he has watched them arguing with the street sellers, heard their fresh accents rolling broken English around their tongues. These South Asians are not like the Shahs, and they are not like Sameer.

  ‘I guess it’s not that surprising,’ he says slowly, thinking of his father. ‘Probably a lot of people who were thrown out didn’t exactly feel comfortable about coming back.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Maryam digs her fork deeper into the pancake stack. ‘I’ll tell you what is rare to see though,’ she says. ‘A Ugandan employed by an Asian at a very senior level. Those positions are usually for their families and fellow Asians.’ She pauses for a moment. ‘Your grandfather was different. He employed my great-grandfather at the highest level of the company.’

  Sameer’s smile freezes as he thinks: But he wouldn’t make him a shareholder in the company, not even to save his own business.

  ‘Have you read any more of his letters?’ she asks.

  Sameer nods, unsure of what to say. ‘He saw your great-grandfather as a brother,’ he eventually supplies.

  ‘Which meant so much back then,’ she replies, oozing a gratitude that he is not sure is entirely deserved. ‘So the British had this system, right, which was that the Asians should be the buffer between them and the native. Asians weren’t allowed to own agricultural land, so they had to trade. Africans were restricted from trading, so they had to farm. Your grandfather, having my great-grandfather as his business partner, was one of the first to break those boundaries.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Sameer says, brushing off this last comment. He finds her admiration, her readiness to believe the best of his grandfather, somewhat distressing. ‘Do you want to order anything else?’

  ‘Do you see how the whole problem was started by the British?’ she demands, ignoring the question. ‘And then our post-independence government tried to force the British structures apart, but their policies didn’t discriminate between you. They ended up affecting people who were already integrated, like your grandfather. I’m sorry for that.’

  The pancakes are cold now and Sameer sits there, chewing glumly. Maryam does not seem to notice the change in his demeanour and she asks him, glibly, whether there is anything else that he has read that he wants to share. He turns the conversation to his grandfather’s grief, the common denominator of all human relationships. ‘It really hurts to lose someone you love. I’ve never known that.’ Then he remembers, again, that she lost her mother and his face colours – ‘I’m sorry –’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she is smiling. ‘I didn’t know her. I think I must love her. But I never knew her.’

  There is a short silence and then Sameer finds himself saying: ‘I nearly lost my best friend.’ She asks him what happened, and he tells her – before he knows it, it has all spilled out: the shock, that Rahool was the last person you would associate with any kind of violence; the pain and confusion as he tried to understand the motive; the horror at seeing his friend like that in hospital; the guilt at not being able to attend the trial; the punishment when Rahool failed to remember who he was. They have been messaging almost every day since he has been in Uganda, but the conversation is stilted, forced – it’s just not the same. She listens quietly, nodding and saying the right thing at the right time. When he is done, and her eyes are unblinking, her face attuned to his stress, he feels quietly heartened.

  As they get up to leave, she says spontaneously: ‘You should come for dinner again before you go. Come tonight, our cook will be there. You’ll get real Ugandan food.’

  ‘What did I have last time?’

  ‘Remember that chicken stew? Well, let’s just say cooking has never been one of my strengths …’

  ‘I thought it was delicious.’

  She laughs as they exit the restaurant and begin to walk towards where her car is parked. ‘I never cared about learning to cook. All I cared about was becoming a doctor.’

  Sameer thinks of Zara, who can cook as well as their mother and puts all her enthusiasm into it. A happy but odd thought crosses his mind – he can’t wait for Zara to meet Maryam.

  ‘Either way, it was delicious,’ he insists.

  ‘That’s because you’re not used to Ugandan food.’

  ‘I am,’ he protests, ‘my mother makes it at home.’

  ‘That’s not real Ugandan food – that’s Asian fusion.’

  ‘Real Ugandan food is Asian fusion – look at your Rolex!’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ she laughs. ‘I guess you’re right.’

  They have arrived at her car. Sameer turns to face her and the morning sun is still low. When she smiles at him, the dimples in her cheeks make him wish suddenly that he was funnier so that he could see her smile more.

  ‘Well, thanks for breakfast,’ she says.

  ‘Thanks for meeting me,’ he replies. Instinct causes him to lean forward for a hug, but she flinches, drawing back, and he immediately retreats and puts his hands in his pockets. They look at each other for a moment and then she smiles weakly, looking around.

  He takes a step back from the car, from her. But then, as she retrieves the keys and gets inside the car, she gives him a wave: ‘So I’ll see you for dinner at home tonight?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sameer replies. ‘Definitely!’ he adds, but her car has already pulled away.

  He watches her car become smaller and smaller until it disappears around a corner. Standing there, blinking in the light as he watches her go, he is very aware that he feels something for her, but he doesn’t know yet what it is. He is not even sure if she likes him at all, and this in itself is unsettling.

  Shaking these thoughts from his min
d, he pulls out his phone and orders an Uber. He’s taken to making his own energy juices in the morning and this morning’s concoction requires tamarind and ginger. Nakasero market is the natural destination, of course, but he finds himself heading for his grandfather’s old shop.

  Musa is working and his face lights up when he sees Sameer, hobbling out from behind the till and embracing him. ‘You won’t find Maryam here,’ he says, chuckling.

  Sameer immediately blushes, ducking into an aisle so that Musa cannot see his face. ‘I didn’t come here to find Maryam,’ he calls back, affronted. ‘I came here to buy something …’

  ‘What do you need, son?’ Musa appears in front of Sameer and gestures towards the sanitary towels and panty liners in the aisle. ‘I assume none of this?’ he chuckles again softly.

  Sameer smiles sheepishly. ‘Can you show me where the fruit and vegetables are?’ he asks, as he follows Musa past the sanitary towels, down an aisle of canned goods and finally to a stand at the side of the store. ‘Why don’t you have labels for the aisles? It would make it easier for your customers.’

  ‘Who said we want to make it easier for the customers?’ Musa says as he watches Sameer root through the stubs of ginger. ‘They come to buy one thing, they leave with ten other items …’

  Sameer laughs at the obvious logic of it, digging into his pocket to retrieve a couple of crumpled notes. Musa shakes his head, and no matter how much Sameer tries, he won’t take the money. ‘Thank you so much,’ Sameer says, eventually giving up. ‘Oh, also, um. Maryam said I should come for dinner tonight. I don’t know if that’s OK …’

  ‘Of course,’ Musa smiles widely. ‘We’re expecting you.’

  That afternoon – his last afternoon in Mr Shah’s office – is quiet. Sameer has just completed a report on the new luxury lodges that have opened in Western Uganda over the past few months, comparing their location and service offering to the Shahs’ resorts; Mr Shah is reviewing monthly management accounts. ‘Thanks for that,’ he says as Sameer’s email arrives in his inbox, looking up from the files on his desk. ‘Feel free to head on home, beta, no need to wait for me. I can’t believe it’s already your last day here.’