Seeing very early that the rules had changed, and that the new rules would be much tougher than the old, Patricia had gone directly into Amin’s camp for her next protector, finding him in the State Research Bureau, another colonel, this one a Lugbara (Amin’s mother’s tribe) named Musa Embur. He was married, which made it better; a man is always more solicitous of his mistress. Once or twice he had offered to marry her as well—multiple marriage was legal and common in Uganda, and at the moment Amin himself had four wives—but Patricia preferred the freedom of action implicit in her present situation. And besides, Embur had introduced her to Amin.
Amin frightened her, and excited her. Without his power he would have been nothing but a clumsy bear, not even amusing, but the natural way he wielded his power—as though of course he would be powerful, answerable to no one but himself—gave him a fascination to which very few women were immune.
For the past two years Patricia had been a spy for Amin, mostly responding to rumors that this or that individual high in government was disloyal, was possibly even thinking of a coup. Amin told her whom to go after, and what he wanted to learn. She had exposed some plotters and had proved some others blameless (a few times too late to make any difference to the suspect), but until Sir Denis Lambsmith she had never grown to care for any of the men she came in contact with.
What was she to do? It was only as a spy that she would be allowed to continue her relationship with this man, but she no longer wanted to play that part with him. And what secrets did he know, in any event? He was an honest businessman, nothing more. Even when it seemed there might be something, there was not.
Tonight, for instance, before the proposal of marriage, he had told her that Emil Grossbarger believed the coffee shipment was in danger of hijack. But had he any proof, any names, any hints, the slightest suggestion of what the plot might be or who was Grossbarger’s informant? Nothing. Sir Denis knew nothing, and it was cruel to play him this way, and she’d already known she wanted to stop even before he’d said that dreadful thing about marriage. “Don’t, my dear!” she said, in panic, thrusting her hand against his mouth.
He misunderstood, of course. “It’s the age difference, you mean. Patricia, my darling, if I—”
“No no no, please,” she said, terrified he would make even more of a fool of himself for the microphones.” Come along,” she told him, climbing out of the bed, pulling him by his long white arm. “Come on, now, we’ll take a shower, we’ll talk later.”
“A shower? At a moment like—”
“Please.”
Responding at last to the urgency in her face and voice, he permitted himself to be dragged from the bed and herded into the bathroom, where she turned on full-blast both the hot and cold faucets in the shower, then turned, smiling, to say, “Now we can talk. The microphones can’t hear us.”
“Oh, my Lord,” he said, blushing like a boy, his face and neck suffusing, becoming thoroughly red. “I completely forgot about those blasted things. Chase warned me, of course. My, we have given them an earful, haven’t we?”
“On purpose,” she said.
He leaned closer, apparently believing he hadn’t heard. “What was that?”
“It was my job to get you to talk,” she said, looking him directly in the eye. Her own eyes felt skinned; they burned with every tear she’d left unshed her whole life long.
He studied her as though he were no more than a kindly counselor, to whom she had brought a small but nagging problem. “So you are a—It sounds ridiculous to say it, the word itself is ridiculous.”
“I am a spy.” She pronounced the word carefully and distinctly, to rob it of ridiculousness.
“I’d wondered, of course,” he told her, sadly shaking his head. “I will admit it crossed my mind. But to spy on me?”
“I did. I was ordered to.” She held tight to his forearms. “I gave you drugs to make you talk. I have been performing for the microphones.”
“Hardly that,” he said, smiling wanly at her. “I can see where I must appear a doddering old fool, but—”
“No!”
“—but I can’t believe it has been entirely performance. Were it, you wouldn’t tell me now.”
“Of course not.”
“I haven’t known many secrets, have I?”
She managed to return his smile, saying, “Absolutely none. Has there ever lived such an innocent?”
“Keep me innocent, Patricia. Marry me.”
“Please—”
“Stay with me for whatever years I have left. Live with me where you will. São Paulo, London, somewhere else. Wherever you prefer. But not in this country.”
“Not in Africa!” she said, startled by her own vehemence.
“I agree.”
“But we can’t; this is just fantasy. You and I—”
“The age?”
“And the race.”
“Nonsense,” he said, dismissing that. “Day after tomorrow, this annoying transaction will be at last completed. I shall leave Uganda, and you shall come with me.”
“We can’t just—”
“Hush,” he said, and hushed her by kissing her. “Shall I let you go, now I’ve found you? Let us have that shower while there’s still hot water left, and go to sleep, and dream whatever we dream, and talk again tomorrow.”
“All right,” she said, too drained to go on arguing.
“Somewhere without microphones,” he said. “If there is such a place in Kampala.”
36
Wednesday night, Lew couldn’t stand the silent house, so he went for a drive westward along the gulf shore, not realizing until he was passing the place that he had repeated his route that time with Amarda. The memory of her, slippery and agile in the humid car, with the steam on the windows and the rain chuckling on the roof, came back to him alone in this other car now in the night like a physical presence, angering him and making him feel stupid. What Ellen had said about the rain was true—the rain and the long wait when nothing really was happening—but without Amarda they would have survived. Even to remember Amarda now, much less to remember her erotically, showed how little he could trust himself. “I am a fool,” he muttered, glowering out the windshield, “and I do have to go on living with me.”
The African roads at night were populated, people strolling along singly or in groups, walking at the edge of the road itself because the verge was too uneven or too overgrown. They walked in darkness, lit only by stars, and suddenly appeared like apparitions in his headlights. He had to keep steering around them. None hitchhiked or even acknowledged his presence, except that if they were walking toward him they lowered their eyes against his lights. Mostly they were raggedly dressed and walked slowly, ambling along as though to no particular destination. Their society is so mysterious to me, Lew thought, that I don’t even know why they go for walks at night.
Not wanting to return past the Amarda spot, he continued on until he found a rutted stony dirt road leading away to the right. This too was dotted with strollers, and eventually it led back to the main road, the B1, which in turn brought him to Kisumu and home, where he found Frank and Young Mr. Balim getting drunk in his kitchen. “We brought you beer,” Young Mr. Balim said, smiling like a used-car salesman.
“And drank it,” Frank said. “We figured you needed to get cheered up.”