THE BLACK PEARL
It is a wonderful morning. He is surrounded by warmth, the sun not yet beating down on him as it will in the hours to come. He looks over the fields that surround him, painted gold by the rising sun.
He pictures himself in his patrol car, travelling through countryside like this on a road that stretches across it like a lazy, winding river. The realization hits him so suddenly that he nearly stops walking. This is maybe the first time since the shadow swept over Uganda that he has really noticed the beauty of his surroundings. The constantly rising death toll and the whispered conversations on the street numb his senses to such things.
He feels a tug on his hand and looks down into the face of his beloved first son, Nsubuga. Nsubuga's eyes show both love and pride in him, feelings which are mirrored in his father's heart. His son's pride, because of the Police uniform he wears. His own, because, although he is only four, he can tell Nsubuga will grow to be a worthy young man.
Nsubuga is walking quickly and he must stop to take a breath. His son looks up at him, eyes, the only features inherited from his wife, showing the same concern seen in hers on those nights when he comes home after work, forehead and shirt wet with sweat.
Even now he hears her voice, as he has heard it in his thoughts often lately.
"You'll kill yourself one day. I don't care if it's someone else who pulls the trigger, but it will be your own fault. Forty five's too old to be doing what you do, especially with the way things are these days."
She makes him feel like an old man with such talk. It is true that time has treated her better, but there is only a year between their ages.
He has grown bored of marriage. Maybe it is time to look elsewhere. It would be good to be with someone who could make him feel young again, as she herself used to. His son pulls at his shirt, urging him on.
"Come on father. You promised to take me home from school in your Police car, didn't you?"
Nsubuga. His son has kept him from making this choice for so long. He has memories of his father, being away from home so often, leaving himself, little more than Nsubuga's age, to be the man of the house until he returned, tongue loosened by waragi. The only good times he can remember having with his father are while he was drunk.
The bottle was to blame for many of the bad times, as well. On those nights his father stayed out late, he drank more than any other man in the bar, as if this would be a way to prove himself to the others. The only person he saw who took interest in these drunken escapades was their doctor, when she noticed the closeness of their 'household accidents' to his nights on the town.
"Kibadde-ki?" (What's wrong?) She had asked his mother, when he was brought in after 'falling over' and breaking his arm.
She met eyes with the doctor, as if about to say something, but, before the words could come she lowered her eyes, a look of shame on her face. That's just the way it is. Her actions said. We have failed him in some way and this is our punishment. A shadow crossed the face of the other woman, but she said nothing more. She must have seen many such cases during her career. The drink loosened his fists, as well.
He has tried so hard to keep Nsubuga from going through what he had to, but he asks himself why he has allowed his wife to control his life for so long. Maybe the secret he told him this morning, just so that image of joy and surprise on his son's face could carry him through the day, is his way of making up for anything he lacks as a father.
If his son were older, he wouldn't have said this, but since he is only four, it will be a long while until he is ready to join the police force.
Maybe by then the job of the police will be more like you imagine it, son. Catching bad men and putting them in jail, instead of following them around, fishing their victims out of the water, digging them up in the forests, telling the families of those found, killed for nothing more than sport, what I can see in their eyes that they already know- the police have no power in the new Uganda.
Nsubuga looks into his eyes once more, and he fears he can see deeper, into his heart.
"Come on." he says excitedly, as if twelve o'clock, and his ride, will come faster if he gets to school early. His smile once again covers that troubled look his father has seen on his face more and more. The look ages him, face looking like a smaller copy of his father's.
He feels the anger build up in him again. How many little boys just like Nsubuga have had their childhood ripped away from them by Amin?
The sound of the car forces its way into his mind again. He looks back over his shoulder.
"Wabenzi?" Nsubuga asks, noticing it for the first time, although it has followed them for quite a distance.
"No." He says gripping, his hand tighter, walking as fast as he dares without letting his terror show, knowing their pleasure will be far greater if they see that he is frightened.
The car speeds up. At first he thinks the driver wants only to pace them, but the gap grows gradually smaller. The car turns in ahead of them and three tall figures get out. Taking one look at them, he loses hope. Dressed in platform shoes, bell bottomed trousers and happily coloured tropical shirts, anyone else would look harmless. The sunglasses, black lenses like sockets in their gaunt, skull-like faces, and the three scars on each of their temples, reveal these men for what they are - killers.
Nsubuga cowers behind his father, and he wishes he could protect him.
"What do you want?" He asks, trying to keep his voice level.
"Sigara?" one of them asks.
"Hapana." He replies in their own language.
"Money?" The man asks, more hopefully.
He reaches into his pocket and takes out one hundred dollars. All he has.
The hand darts out, taking the money with greater dexterity than he had thought a Nubian could manage. The man holds the bill up to the sun, and grunts in approval, nodding them on.
They have only gone two steps when the club strikes his head, knocking him down. He blinks, but his vision is blurry, growing more out of focus.
"Nsubuga. Run!" the shout takes much of his energy.
After a second, he does as he is told, heading towards school, but not before his father sees the horrible, confused look in his eyes, knows his memory of this day will far outlive him.
The three men look after Nsubuga, then return their attention to himself, identical cruel smiles on their faces.
The pain goes on for what seems like an eternity, and then he slips down, thankful. He is vaguely aware of being lifted, and stuffed like a rag doll into a box of some kind, but it no longer concerns him. His last thoughts are of the coppery smell of blood, and of the way the doors slamming shut and the engine coming to life sound like the footfalls and mighty roar of the noble lion as it takes down a gazelle, its prey graceful even as the part it plays in the ballet of life and death draws to an end. On a grassy plain, in the beautiful countryside of the Pearl of Africa.
They can no longer hurt him here.