My Secret History

  At about this time I saw an item in the Uganda Argus entitled AMERICAN WRITER DIES. It was Jack Kerouac. He was forty-seven. Years ago he had seemed old to me. Now he seemed young—much too young to die. The item did not say how. I thought about him, and how I had read On the Road, and I could not remember whether I had liked it. I continued writing my own novel.

  I always had lunch at home now. Mwezi usually cooked it, and after we had sent her away we made love in the afternoon and had a nap before I went back to work.

  One of these afternoons, waking from the deep and sudden sleep produced by energetic sex, I looked across the pillow and saw Jenny turning away. She was murmuring, trying to stifle her sobs. The bush-baby appeared at the window—listening.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She said, “Everything!” and began to sob out loud.

  “Please tell me,”

  I said, horrified to see her so distraught.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” It was not obvious to me.

  She said, “I feel miserable.” Her crying was not dry breathless hysteria or panic; it was slow painful sobs like waves breaking.

  What made this so awful was that I was so happy—until that moment. I had never been so happy: I had told her that many times. I told her again, and this time it made her scream.

  “Of course you’re happy!” she said. Her face was wet, and the fact that she was naked made her crying seem worse. I could see misery in her whole body.

  I got up and handed her my bathrobe, because I couldn’t bear to look.

  She said, “You haven’t had to quit your job. You have work, you have money. I’ve given up everything—even my name. I never wanted this to happen. I have nothing to do.”

  It surprised me. I never imagined that anyone would object to having nothing to do. Why would anyone want to work if they didn’t have to? What she said baffled me so completely I did not know how to argue against it.

  I said, “We take trips, don’t we?”

  “You do all the driving!”

  “I know the roads,” I said. “I know the shortcuts.”

  “I can learn. I’ve driven in Africa. I speak Swahili,” she said. “I’m not stupid. I have an Oxford degree—and you made me quit my job.”

  She became quieter and that worried me more, because she had been sobbing in grief, and this seemed to turn to anger.

  “Now I’m just like all these expatriate wives I used to pity and despise. I’m a memsahib—you made me a memsahib. I stay at home and wait for you.”

  I wanted to say You’re lucky, but I didn’t dare. I disliked her for making me fearful of saying it. But she was lucky, I was convinced of that. It seemed perverse of her to be so unhappy. But then didn’t pregnant women get fits of depression like this and wasn’t this all attributable to that? The bush-baby clinging to the window grille seemed to see it that way.

  Jenny complained a bit more, then described what she hated about being a memsahib, and she said that she hated dealing with Mwezi. These were mostly irrational grievances and because of that I was able to understand them. She was being cranky.

  Then she sat up and said, “I came here to teach Africans.

  That was the only thing I wanted. And you put a stop to it.” That was when I lost my temper.

  I said, “Teaching Africans what? How to speak English. How to do math. That’s ridiculous. I’m sick of doing it—sick of hearing about it. Half the students here are married and have families, and they pretend they’re schoolboys. They say they want to go abroad and study. They’re lying—they want to get out and never come back. They hate their lives. They want a ticket to England or America. They hate farming. They want to wear suits and neckties. Those girls you were teaching will all end up in a village pounding corn in a wooden mortar. They’ll have ten kids each and a drunken husband. What is the point of teaching anything here except farming?”

  “You dislike Africans, I know you do,” Jenny said.

  “The only friends I’ve had for more than four years here have been Africans—and some Indians. What you’re saying is bullshit. You don’t know me.”

  “You make remarks about them,” she said. “Don’t deny it. When we were in Moroto—”

  “You mean, those bare-assed Karamojong? Was I supposed to pretend they weren’t naked? I’m standing there with you and those men and I see four huge salamis swinging back and forth, and so I make a remark about a delicatessen.”

  “It was so cruel,” she said. “You could have pretended you didn’t see anything.”

  “Oh, God,” I said. By now I was dressed—and I was late for work. “That’s perfect. Pretend you don’t see their dongs. Pretend this is a real city. Pretend they don’t kill each other. Pretend they don’t envy and hate you. Pretend you’re not white. Pretend they’re not staring at your tits. Pretend your teaching is helping the country. Pretend you’re not here to have a grand old time in the bush. Pretend that in a few years there’s going to be a big improvement in Uganda. Pretend the president is not a total asshole as well as a murderer, a torturer—”

  I stopped, because Jenny had begun to cry again.

  “You want a job? You can have mine. Then I can stay home.”

  “You’d hate that.”

  “I’d love it,” I said. It was what I wanted most: to sit at home all day, working on my novel. “I’d love to sit in that room and write.”

  “I don’t have a room!” Jenny said. “This is your house! Everything is yours. I hate it!” She was sobbing terribly and choking.

  “Please don’t cry,” I said. She let me hold her.

  She said, “I am so unhappy.”

  “Maybe you’re feeling lousy because of the baby,” I said.

  Her eyes went cold. She said, “Jesus, you don’t know anything, do you? This baby is the only thing that makes me happy.”

  The word baby made me look up: the bush-baby had gone. At what point in our yelling back and forth had the little creature taken itself away?

  “What about me?” I said. “Don’t you love me?”

  “I don’t even know you,” she said sorrowfully and wiped her tears away.

  There was no conclusion—only a parting, because I had to go back to work. I felt dreadful, and I felt overwhelmed; I had no answers. Would it always be this way?

  I worked on my novel, and I was surprised that I was able to continue it. It went as smoothly as ever. It was a relief and a consolation. My hero, Yung Hok, ran his grocery store and made plans; he too had a private life. But Mrs. Yung Hok, who up to now had been enigmatic, took on a life of her own and became a character. She was a very discontented person and had violent fits of anger, and sometimes when she screamed at her husband he went silent and his neck seemed to shorten, and he squinted like a small boy being nagged by his mother.

  10.

  I had married a pretty girl who turned into a dissatisfied woman very quickly. But it was not over. Another woman began to emerge in her. Jenny changed again, she became bigger and blanker and rather slow. Her shape altered, she was quieter, she slept more, she developed a passion for pineapple juice. She was a different person altogether, with different thoughts. She was softer, slower, a bit weepy. She was heavy, she was earthbound. The change fascinated me—and it released me from my terror of being accused by her of having subverted her life. Now she had another life, too.

  We always went shopping at the market on Saturday mornings. One sunny Saturday, we were driving down Kampala Road, and had just passed the twittering bats, when we saw an Indian approaching on a motor scooter. He waved and his machine wobbled as he slowed down.

  He was screaming.

  “Go back, go back!”

  He looked absurd, screaming on the empty street, in this sleepy part of town, with the sunshine beating on the trees and making green shadows, and all those twittering bats.

  “They’ll kill you!”

  Another car drew up behind me. The Indian looked over his shoulder and then back at us, and h
e screamed again. Once I had heard that same scream—when an Indian was being set upon by an African, late one night; Rashida had found it exciting. It was utter panic.

  The car behind me was beeping for me to move. I looked and saw an African at the wheel, gesturing for me to move on.

  Jenny said, “What’s wrong with that Indian?”

  His face was gray, he had flecks of spit on his lips. Now he was raving at the car behind me.

  “Go back!” he screamed. “They will kill you!”

  His Hindi accent made the words somehow less urgent.

  I said, “What’s up?”

  He did not reply. He jerked his motor scooter, nearly tipping it over, and rode away—climbing the curb and speeding down a dirt path between the trees.

  It was very confusing—only a matter of seconds had passed.

  “Oh, shit,” I said, feeling fuddled.

  Jenny’s mouth was gaping open. In a voice I did not recognize as hers, she said, “Look.”

  Far ahead, at the crest of the road, where I expected to see cars I saw people, ragged Africans, all men, a crowd of them as wide as the road. They plodded along towards us, motioning, and a moment later I heard their cries. They passed a shop and broke its windows, they passed a car and overwhelmed it, they were gesturing with sticks, they were flinging stones.

  The car behind me was still beeping, and the African driver—as though he was part of this trap—was pushing his hand impatiently at me. He stuck his head out of his window and called out Move along!

  It was the bursar, Wangoosa, a man I had never known to raise his voice. His eyes were small and his teeth huge, and he was angry that I was hesitating. And he was so close to me that I couldn’t reverse my car. Nor could I go forward—the ragged African mob was coming nearer.

  I tried to make a turn, to go around Wangoosa and get away. It was an awkward maneuver on such a narrow road, and as I struggled with the steering wheel, Jenny began to cry.

  Then the mob was on us. The windshield was punched apart. It broke quickly into pieces so small they dropped like liquid into our laps. Jenny screamed as blood appeared on her knees and hands.

  I was shouting too—protesting—but the howling of the mob was so loud I could not hear my own voice. The car had darkened because of the Africans surrounding it, blocking out the light. It was shadow and panic and the strong smell of their dirty clothes. The back window went with a splash, and a side window splintered. They were clubbing the metal of the car, hammering the roof and the doors.

  The Africans’ smooth babyish faces were clear in the front window. Their clothes were torn, their hair was tangled and dirty, they were sweating. They were all laughing, and now they were rocking the car, trying to tip it over. I had the impression of a great number of big dangerous hands and dirty fingers snatching at me.

  Jenny was now hysterical. There was no way I could get her out of the car unless I got out first, and from the moment the first window broke I had been trying to open my door. It was impossible. The Africans pressed against it held it firmly shut.

  Still I shoved at it with my shoulder, and I shouted, “Stop! My wife is inside! She’s hurt—she’s bleeding—”

  They paid no attention to me. They were intent on smashing the car, and in their eagerness to club the roof they stood away from the door. I managed to open it wide enough to squeeze myself out, and I braced myself to be clubbed, raising my arms to ward off the blows.

  There were none. The Africans stepped aside—they were grinning at the car, and still laughing. Now I saw there were many of them—we were surrounded by hundreds of Africans, all of them holding sticks and iron bars. One moved past me to hit the door with an iron bar, and he hit it so hard he lost his grip. The bar went clanging to the road.

  A struggle was going on at Jenny’s side of the car. I put my arms over my face to protect myself and shouldered my way through the crowd. But she was gone. The car was rocking, it was empty.

  I hated the laughter most of all. The mob had turned my car into a toy they had decided to break. I felt helpless and weak, and I was desperate, because I could not see Jenny anywhere. The Africans were all around me, and I moved with them: I became part of the mob—part of their will. We were overturning my car—I was among them.

  Then my arm was gripped and I was being tugged out of the mob, moving sideways into the sunlight.

  “Come with me.”

  It was a small, beaky Indian in a gray suit. He was half my size, but I needed his strength to get me free of the Africans. He helped me nearer the sidewalk and just then I looked up and saw Jenny pass behind a door.

  The little Indian rushed me through the door, then slammed it and bolted it—three bolts. Just as he slid the third bolt someone began pounding on it. I knew who it was: I had seen their hands.

  But the beaky man was smiling.

  “They cannot break it. The door is strong.”

  The hammering grew louder. Still the Indian smiled—he was smiling at the door.

  “I made that door myself,” he said. “In my own workshop. I know my business.” He smoothed his suit. “But just to be on the safe side we will go to the roof, where it is comfortable.”

  He led me to the stairs and looked back at the door, which was being thumped.

  “That is a political matter,” he said. “That is nonsense. That is—”

  And he loudly cleared his throat and spat.

  On our way to the roof we passed a landing. Hearing us, an Indian woman stuck her head out of a beaded curtain and said something to the man.

  “Your wife is inside. Not to worry. She is receiving treatments.”

  Jenny was sitting, murmuring, her skirt hitched up and her thighs painted with antiseptic. Her forearms were cut, her dress was torn. I hugged her awkwardly and she began to whimper softly.

  “We’re okay,” I said. “Thanks to this guy.”

  “C. D. Patel,” the man said, and straightened and put out his hand. “Carpentry, furniture, bedding. And you?”

  “Andre Parent.”

  “Your occupation?”

  “I’m a writer.”

  We had tea and cakes under an awning on the roof as the last of the rioters passed beneath us on the street.

  “What was that all about?” Jenny asked.

  “African fuss and bother,” Mr. Patel said. “They attacked the British High Commission—they broke the doors down. Glass doors. And then they ran riot.”

  His wife clicked her tongue in disapproval.

  “It is a political matter,” Mr. Patel said to her, smiling.

  “That was a nightmare,” Jenny said.

  Mr. Patel was still smiling. “It is balderdash,” he said.

  When he said that I was certain that I would be able to bear it, and understand it, and write about it. And in that same moment I was also certain that I would leave Africa as soon as I could.

  “You must have some sweetmeats,” Mr. Patel said. “My wife has prepared them. We call this gulabjam. Please take.”

  I was still listening to the last of the mob.

  “They wrecked my car,” I said. “What do we do now?”

  “You will be able to go home soon. I will drive you in my van.”

  I remembered that I had seen policemen near my car, after I got out and the mob had surged around me. Why hadn’t they helped me—why hadn’t they stopped the attack? I was trembling with anger and was about to describe this—and all my other complaints, like Wangoosa, who had honked at me and obstructed my retreat—when Jenny suddenly stood up. She was not steady on her feet. She braced herself by gripping my shoulder.

  “Oh,” she said softly and touched the great curve of her abdomen.

  She tried to take a step, but she hesitated as water coursed down her legs and darkened her skirt. In the next second the Indian’s wife scrambled to her feet—before I could react. But I was looking at Jenny’s face. She seemed at once very calm and quietly surprised, as though she had just heard something—
but no ordinary sound, it was a whisper from the heavens, something pulsing in the air.

  FIVE

  LEAVING SIBERIA

  1.

  It was winter in Siberia. I had been expecting deep snow and drifts, and had already rehearsed the phone call I planned to make in Khabarovsk: how cold it was, the icicles, the blizzards. But we traveled deeper into Siberia and though it was very cold, the snow was thin and disappointing. For miles at times there was nothing to see but slender peeling birches under a heavy sky—as if all the snow still lay packed in the low-hanging clouds, and was about to fall on me.

  I was traveling westward from Japan and had been thinking about that phone call since Hokkaido, where I had tried three times to make it. It rang and went on ringing—the ring that makes you see the room again, but empty. It was Sunday in Japan but Saturday in London. Maybe she had gone away for the weekend?

  The trouble with taking long trips was this suspense, which could be tormenting, and I hated guessing what was going on. But I had left in a hurry—I had left under a cloud. After six weeks I had called. This was in India, a miserable line, the squeezed and ghostly voice of the Indian telephone that makes you think of a séance. I heard her say faintly that everything was all right.

  There were no letters waiting for me in Singapore two months later, but I was there a week and one arrived the day before I left. It was a short letter: she said she missed me. After that there was silence. I was in Vietnam, and when I knew it was impossible to call I stopped thinking about it. I kept writing my notes—it held me together, it ordered my thoughts, it helped me forget, and when I reread them I was consoled.

  In Japan they said it was easy to call England. True, but no one answered. And then I had to leave. I was on a Soviet ship in the Sea of Japan—high waves and blowing slop; then in the cold brown city of Nakhodka; then on another train to Khabarovsk. Why was there so little snow in Siberia?