29

The service, widely regarded as a triumph for Boniface Rugiru, had ended on a sour note for the man himself. Indeed, it was only through the exercise of considerable self-discipline that he was able to conclude his final duties.

While Charity was being served with official papers that threatened the very existence of Harrods, Boniface Rugiru stood at the top of the steps and shook hands with the mourners as they filed out. The event had been a tremendous success, if that was the right term to use. It had gone without a hitch and Rugiru graciously accepted the congratulations offered by all and sundry.

But far from feeling the benefits of catharsis that a good funeral send-off should provide, he looked deeply distressed and several of the departing congregation commented on this. They put it down to the stress of the occasion and the pain of his loss. Boniface chose to keep silent about the theft of the radio.

Silence was the only way to cope.

Had he not stayed quiet, he feared he would have been unable to maintain his relative equanimity and would have broken down in tears of rage and frustration.

“It was so quick,” Boniface later told his wife, who was still tending their fever-struck youngest son.

“In one shake of a duck’s tail, the radio, it just disappeared.”

As to the culprit, he had his suspicions. The crematorium’s gardener and odd-job man, an Okot, was at the top of his list. After all, he was from the north of Kuwisha, and from the clan of the same name. Rugiru shared his suspicions with his wife that evening.

Part of his case against the man, he acknowledged, was based on nothing other than prejudice.

“But the main reason”, continued Rugiru, dipping a ball of nshima into the tasty goat gravy made by his wife, “is that you can never trust an Okot man.”

He was already due to return to the crematorium the next day to collect the Oldest Member’s ashes. Now that sad journey had an additional purpose. He would chase the Okot man, and with the help of our Lord, recover the radio.

“You will be lucky,” said his wife. “This is Kuwisha. Okot has probably sold the radio already.”

“I tell you,” said Rugiru, “I will find that thief tomorrow and I will complain directly to the manager of the crematorium about the staff that he employs. Disgraceful!”

The next morning Boniface Rugiru, dressed once more in his senior bar steward uniform, mounted his bicycle and set off for the crematorium, determined to confront the general manager. His fury and his shame had not diminished overnight, although his wife had counselled restraint. He knew that the chances of recovering the Braun radio were negligible. Whoever had stolen it would almost certainly have sold it by now but he was determined that the culprit would not get off scot free.

As he approached the grounds of the chapel of the crematorium, he was greeted politely by the gardener, who waved from a far-off section of the Garden of Rest, where he was tending a flower bed.

Rugiru returned the greeting with a curt nod, so curt as to be almost rude. Any doubt that he’d had as to who was responsible was removed by this outrageous behaviour. Only an Okot could be so hypocritical!

His wife Patience had not improved his mood that morning when she had defended the Okot clan, doubtless because her clan were closer to the Okot people than his own, which hoarded memories of raids on cattle as fresh in their mind as if they’d taken place yesterday.

Rugiru propped up his bike against the railings outside the manager’s office, locked it and took his seat in the office from where he could keep an eye on the bicycle.

“Mr Chipanda will see you now,” said his secretary.

Rugiru scowled. The name was a giveaway. He must be a Lua. If the Okots were thieves, the Luas were certainly as bad. The combination of the one lot’s thievery and the other lot’s cunning was formidable and Rugiru regretted he’d left his stout stick behind.

“He will see you now,” said the secretary again.

Rugiru wanted to get it over as soon as possible and entered the office.

“Gideon Chipanda,” the man held out his hand, which Rugiru shook reluctantly.

“Mr Chipanda, I’ve come to see the Okot man. I am very . . .”

Chipanda intervened.

“Let me call him now,” he said. “And you can thank him for yourself. Perhaps, even, you will want to give him a small present?”

Rugiru was nonplussed. If there was anything he would give this audacious thief it was a good kick up the arse.

“Let me go and call him,” said Chipanda. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

More than ever, Rugiru wished he’d brought his stick. He cast his eyes around the modest office and saw on the desk of Mr Chipanda a well-thumbed copy of a book, whose title, on closer inspection, Rugiru was able to read: Running a Crematorium: A Basic Guide.

Before Rugiru could make a closer examination, Chipanda had returned but noticed his interest in the book.

“My bible,” joked Chipanda, adding: “The Okot man, who is a very good gardener by the way, will be along any minute. That book,” he said, shaking his head in admiration. “That book is excellent. Many times I have consulted it and every time it has come up with the answer to my problem. Or”, he said, “given me a warning of what could become a problem. You will not believe, Mr Rugiru, some of the requests that we get from our customers. Or, I suppose I should say, relatives of some of our customers.

“Sometimes people want company on their last journey. Many settlers want to take their dogs with them. I myself do not want my dog to come with me, wherever I am going. But the settlers want their dogs. I myself would choose my favourite cow.”

At this point the secretary put her head around the door.

“The ashes for the late Mr Smeldon are ready for collection,” she said. “Are you sure, Mr Rugiru, you don’t want tea? I am told it was a very good service.”

Rugiru shook his head. Things were not proving quite as he had anticipated.

“Tea, Mr Chipanda?”

“Yes, please.”

Chipanda picked up the booklet.

“Let me read to you”, he said to Rugiru, “the section which was so helpful in preparing for yesterday’s sad event. It is called The Case of The Exploding Bullet. ‘It must be stressed’, wrote the author of this book, ‘that the habit of mourners in Karimoja, where cattle rustling is very bad of placing of a live bullet in the coffin out of respect for the occupant is to be discouraged. There have been reports of injuries caused – though thank God no fatalities – by bullets exploding after the coffin has been consumed by the fire. On one occasion, sad to relate, there was a serious misunderstanding between rival groups and there was an exchange of fire between bodyguards in the congregation.’ ”

He chuckled. “As for batteries, they also explode. And when I saw that the radio was going into the fire, I had to signal to the Okot man to catch it in time. The batteries would certainly have exploded and many people might have thought they were bullets, and with the president himself attending who knows how his bodyguards might have reacted.”

Mr Chipanda chuckled again.

“I was a bit surprised that your friend did not leave instructions for the radio to be removed. He had thought of everything else. So, Mr Rugiru, you can understand that we were saved from great embarrassment by our friend the gardener.”

The secretary brought in the tea and returned a moment later with an urn containing the ashes of the Oldest Member.

“Here we are, Mr Rugiru,” she said, handing over the urn.

Behind her stood a beaming Okot man. He handed over, respectfully bowing as he did so, the Braun radio. At the same time, Chipanda gave Rugiru a handwritten note.

“He asked me to give it to you when I handed over the ashes. He was most insistent. No radio, no note. Any idea why, Mr Rugiru?”

Rugiru shook his head. He read the note:

Dear Rugiru,

We hit ’em for a six! Look after the radio.

“It was very embarrassing,” said Rugiru to his wife that evening.

“Surely you were very pleased, my husband, because you now have the radio back. The Okot man was not stealing, he was helping. And even Mr Kigali says you can keep it.”

She might have stayed silent, for all the notice Rugiru took of his wife’s words.

“Very, very embarrassing,” said Rugiru, “I had to thank an Okot man.”

His wife sighed. “There is a message from Mrs Mupanga,” she said. “They will pick us up tomorrow at the Thumaiga Club.”

“An Okot man,” Rugiru repeated, shaking his head.

What was the world coming to?

There was one thing that always puzzled Nduka. If the reforms, insisted upon by the West, were so obviously in Kuwisha’s interest, why did they bribe his government to implement them?

An IMF deal could easily bring in $250 million – but when you included the World Bank loan that followed, funds from the European Development Bank and bilateral offerings from the donors, a deal that was done in their own interest could easily generate a billion dollars. The ways of the West were indeed strange.

Still, who was he to complain? All it would cost was a memo and a few promises.

Berksson had asked for a letter to all the participants and he had promised to deliver it by the next morning.

“Progress on the project to rebuild Kireba,” he wrote.

“I wish to congratulate all involved in this great scheme to transform Kireba. Such is the progress, that we feel that posterity would not forgive us if this historic opportunity was not grasped to the full.

“Not only does it envisage the building of 500 flats, we plan to have a market and a crèche as well as a community centre.”

“But more than this, we need to seize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn Kireba into the hub of a regional transport system which will include rail and road links to the coast.

“We know we can count on your governments’ support when we put this to the World Bank and other funding agencies.