Where the Air is Sweet (21 page)

“What to do?
Hanh
?” he asks, and then laughs again. Raju pats him on the shoulder. His father spoiled him. The child of his old age; the gift of his long life. He was a mischievous boy, a fat little fellow who earned his nickname early. He laughed when the boys would tease him.
Jadio.
Fatty. He took the nickname as his own, introduced himself as Ramzan Jadio, eventually
put it up on a storefront, the name of his sweet shop:
JADIO NI MITHAI. ?
successful, thriving shop. This boy has always taken what life gave him without question, without resistance, with joy, Raju thinks as he watches him. And now he is laughing as he loses everything.

On the drive home, Raju and Jaafar do not speak. Raju can think of nothing to say that will not be a lie or too unbearable to utter.

Baku and Khatoun’s eldest daughter, Yasmin, was sent home from school two weeks earlier, ill with malaria. She is well again and her parents are driving her back to boarding school in Kampala. Mumtaz joins them for an evening in the city. After they see the girl off at school, they have dinner at a Punjabi restaurant and stop at a few saree shops. Mumtaz does not buy anything. But Khatoun buys three sarees. “Soon, the girls will be getting married,” she says, looking triumphantly at Mumtaz. “I must be ready.”

By the time they set out for home, the sun is beginning to set. Each checkpoint slows their journey as Baku answers questions about where they have been, where they are going, as he hands over folded shilling notes until the soldiers are satisfied and wave them through. Mumtaz is staring out the window when they drive up to a roadblock on Masaka-Mbarara Road. When Baku slows down, she hears soldiers screaming. Baku stops the car. Three soldiers who have approached the car all begin yelling for him to get out. As he steps onto the pavement, one of them demands to know why he didn’t stop.

“But I did,” he says. “I am stopped.”

Another soldier orders Mumtaz and Khatoun out of the car. He, like the others, is holding a gun in his hands. He is neither gripping the weapon nor pointing it. It rests in his hands like a sleeping snake.

Baku’s voice sounds high, so high Mumtaz fears it will break. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know where I should stop.” His face is flushed. She can see the colour in his cheeks. She can see that he is panting, his chest moving up and down quickly. Headlights from an army Jeep illuminate the road, illuminate everyone, everything on the road.

A soldier orders Baku to put his hands on his head. When Baku does as he says, he orders him to turn and begin walking. Baku walks while the soldier prods his back with his weapon. The end of the rifle barrel disappears into the white of Baku’s shirt, into the ample flesh of his back. When Baku reaches the side of the road, he stops. The soldier demands to know why. “It is marsh,” Baku says. The soldier shoves him with his rifle and he stumbles forward. He stays on his feet, but he is waist-deep in swamp water. He moves a few feet and then stops again. “I cannot walk any farther!” Baku shouts into the darkness. He does not turn around. “I’m sorry!” The soldiers look at one another and begin laughing. They are doubled over laughing as Mumtaz and Khatoun watch them.

A voice in the darkness, coming from somewhere behind the headlights, shouts at Baku to get back into his car. Climbing out of the marsh, he stumbles against the bank.
“Upesi!”
screams the voice.

Baku walks quickly. His body is soaked to the middle of his chest and Mumtaz can make out the small hollow of his belly button. He gets into the car; he does not attempt to dry himself
off. Mumtaz climbs into the back seat and Khatoun gets in beside Baku. He begins driving. No one speaks. For ten minutes they drive in silence. They do not comment on what has happened, on the water dripping from Baku’s clothes, on the smell he is emitting. Khatoun bends her head forward and begins shaking with silent laughter. Mumtaz and Baku join her until they are all laughing, until loud, uninhibited laughter fills the car. Mumtaz pictures Baku standing obediently like a fat schoolboy, his hands above his head, his trousers soaked, and she cannot stop. She is laughing so much she is afraid she will dissolve into tears. Later, at home in her bed, Jaafar sound asleep beside her, she does.

One morning, Major Al-Bashir stops in at the garage. Raju looks up from the books he is reviewing.

Jaafar stands up and smiles. “Welcome, Major. What can I do for you?”

The officer grins. The tribal scars on his cheeks melt into his dimples, nature and nurture meeting in perfect union. “I want the keys for the Mercedes-Benz at your house.”

Raju sees Jaafar stiffen. “It’s not my car.”

Al-Bashir raises his eyebrows.

“I’m keeping it there for a friend who lives in Rwanda,” Jaafar explains. “When his papers are in order, he will come to collect it. He’s done this before a few times. It’s all legal.”

Al-Bashir laughs. He looks out the window and then turns back to Jaafar, a wooden smile on his face. “My friend, your car, your friend’s car, to me, it is same.”

Al-Bashir’s expression, the tone of his voice, suck the air from Raju’s lungs, leaving him exhausted.

“The keys are at home,” he hears Jaafar say. “I’ll drive you there now.”

That evening, Jaafar and Mumtaz are sitting in bed. The lamp is on, the newspaper in front of Jaafar; but he is not reading it.

“I was right that the British would never want so many Asians,” Jaafar says. “They’re making a big fuss over the expulsion, too big a fuss. The idiot has never received so much attention for anything in his life.”

“What can they do?” Mumtaz asks. “Ignore it?”

“They should have. If they had ignored him, he would have quietly changed his mind. Now he has to see it through. He has to prove he is serious and not a clown, like they say he is. And the British sent Rippon to negotiate, an important Englishman begging for an audience with him. How he must have loved that.”

“He is going to see it through,” Mumtaz says. It is not a question but Jaafar answers her.

“Planeloads of Asians have already reached London. I thought they were scared chickens. Mice. But now—” He runs his hand over his face and holds it at his mouth, so that his voice sounds lower, his words slightly muffled. “The roadblocks, Mumtaz. All of it. These drunk, stupid soldiers are after us. They stop Asians, even Asians walking on the streets, whenever they feel like it. Manubhai Madhvani, the richest Asian in Uganda, the richest man in Uganda, is being held at Makindye prison, without charge. What’s ours is theirs now. They can do anything to us. Someone told them this. Someone told all of them this. And they were ready to believe it.”

“Bapa, we have to leave.”

Raju looks at Jaafar. He lets his son’s words linger in the dining room, lets them float throughout the darkened house. It is late. The others are asleep. Raju is sitting at the dining table with a notebook in front of him. He has begun to write things he remembers of his childhood, his youth. He has, in the last few days, begun to feel compelled to document his life. If he does not, it will be as though it never was, as though he never was.

Jaafar sits down in the chair opposite Raju.

“I am an old man,” Raju says. Jaafar is staring at him with bloodshot eyes, the lids heavy, drooping. He has been drinking. Raju can smell whiskey. “Old men cannot start new lives.”

Jaafar lowers his eyes.

“I knew it before you said it,” Raju says. “But it’s good you said it. You showed strength. I have not had the strength to say the words to myself.”

Jaafar is quiet.

“When Bahdur died—”

Jaafar lifts his eyes.

Raju pauses. He notices lines beside Jaafar’s eyes. Wrinkles he had not noticed until this moment. “When Bahdur died, Mumdu was the one to tell me, quickly, kindly. His words didn’t falter. He kept his eyes on mine. And then I called him weak.” He pushes air through his nose. “What strength do you think it takes to tell a man his child is dead? To tell your father his child is dead, the child you yourself loved?”

Jaafar lowers his eyes again. His face has become pale.

More than a minute passes in silence.

“I knew it was ending,” Raju says. “I knew it was all ending the day I saw violated, dishonoured human bodies in the
river mixed with the soil, the air, the grass. Mbarara nourishes whatever you place in its earth. It returns what you offer it a hundredfold. Plantains. Roses. Children.” He looks at Jaafar. “What is it nourishing now?”

Jaafar does not answer. He does not move. Raju doesn’t know if he is asleep. He picks up his notebook and pen, stands up and walks to his bedroom.

The realization of her own powerlessness, of her family’s impotence descends slowly on Mumtaz. For her, acceptance does not come in a moment, in a second, or a few seconds. The notion of being thrown out, of being discarded, penetrates little by little, like drops of water filling a bowl, until one day it is full, overflowing, seeping into every crevice of her life. A fact, simple and familiar.

With one month remaining until the deadline, Mumtaz listens to the radio and reads the newspaper obsessively. More and more Asians reach Britain, where there are daily protests against them. Groups of people at Whitehall chant: “Keep Britain white!” She reads but quickly forgets the stories about Canada, about this faraway place opening its borders, keeping its makeshift diplomatic office in Kampala open six days a week to process Asians, to help Asians, to help her.

One day, she reads an advertisement in the
Argus.
It is from the town council of Leicester in Britain. Mumtaz grips the newspaper in her hands. “These people have gone to the trouble of placing an ad in a Ugandan newspaper to tell Asians they are not welcome in their town.”

“Why, Mummy?”

Mumtaz looks at Shama’s face, at her eyes, Jaafar’s eyes, Raju’s eyes, eyes that look to Mumtaz like deep, dark wells.

“No one wants us,” she says.

“Why?”

“They are frightened,
beta,
” Rehmat says. She is sitting on the sofa, cross-legged, wan, her collarbones pressing sharply against the fabric of her shawl. “When people are afraid, they push others, those who are different, away.”

“Why?”

“Because they are afraid of being pushed away themselves.” She pauses for a few moments. “And they are not strong.”

Mumtaz expects Shama to look at her, to ask, W
hy?
But the girl turns her attention back to her colouring book.

21

E
VERY CONVERSATION IN
JAMAT KHANA
BEGINS
with one question:
Are you going to England?
After some weeks, the question changes slightly:
Did you get your visas?
And then:
Are you going to Canada?
Mumtaz avoids the discussions. “We are undecided,” she says. But they are decided. Jaafar obtained Canadian visas for himself, her and the children. She begins to keep a list in her head, of who is going where. Amir, Baku and his family receive visas for Canada. Ghulam, his wife and his sons all receive Canadian visas, as well. Mumtaz’s parents are, like her, British nationals; they will go to the United Kingdom with their sons. Gulshi, her younger children and her husband will also go to the United Kingdom. Gulshi’s daughter Noor and her husband have obtained visas for the United States.

“We know nothing about this place,” Mumtaz says.

“The people at the Canadian diplomatic office are nice. The young girls handing out visa applications were smiling all the time and they worked quickly. I can’t see how they are different
from Americans.” Jaafar is chewing boiled peanuts. His mouth is full as he talks.

She is irritated, but she does not dare tell him to finish chewing before he speaks.

“Canada is like America, but colder and more peaceful,” he says.

“But what do we know of America?”

“Hippies. Kennedys. Rita Hayworth.” He is smiling. He is mocking her.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Canada is taking us. They are offering us shelter when they owe us nothing. When we are nothing to them.”

“Where did they come from? One day their offices are everywhere, in every town, like weeds,” Baku says.

Raju looks up at him. He is sitting at the dining table with Baku, Jaafar and Gulshi’s husband, Ramzan. They are filling out paperwork distributed by the suddenly ubiquitous offices of the Departed Asians Property Custodian Board.

“There are two forms that we need,” Jaafar says, ignoring Baku’s question. “Each form has the letters
PRO
at the top. Do you all have them both in front of you?”

The papers are on the table in front of Raju, but he does not look at them.

Jaafar continues. “One is a Declaration of Assets and the other a Declaration of Business and Industrial Interests.” He picks up one of the forms and begins reading. “We need to attach ‘copies of title deeds, debentures, loan agreements and contracts or any other agreements regarding these assets and
liabilities, a certified true copy of the memorandum of association and articles of association of any companies and copies of the accounts, balance sheets or profit and loss account of the business for the last preceding two years as required or submitted for income tax purposes.’“

“And if we don’t bother with this?” asks Ramzan. Raju’s son-in-law runs two pharmacies with his older brothers in Jinja.

“Then you cannot leave Uganda,” says Jaafar. “Every departing Asian must fill them out. Once the forms are submitted and accepted, you will receive receipts. You need the receipts to exit the country.”

“So the thieves want to itemize everything they are stealing?” Ramzan asks. “Already we have to fill out forms from the Bank of Uganda to release funds for our airline tickets and now this?”

Jaafar nods, his eyes on the forms.

“In my life, how many times have I filled out forms?” Raju asks. “I have applied for building permits, merchant’s licences, lease agreements, loan agreements, mortgages, insurance claims and God-knows-what else. I did it because it was necessary. We all became citizens to operate businesses here, not to become Ugandans. We were already Ugandans, since Uhuru, like everyone else.” He shakes his head. “Does Yozefu have a citizenship? Esteri? Of course not. They don’t own businesses. They don’t travel out of the country. But they are Ugandans: these Banyankole, these Baganda. What else can they be? But we must prove we are Ugandans.”