Remember how we took over Lido like kids freed from school, like escaped prisoners? We dashed straight into the cold slap of blue water fully clothed, screaming crazily, splashing one another, ducking underneath, grabbing at legs, falling over, screaming some more, our mouths full of water. We madly chased one another out, over the sand and onto the dance floor, dripping water everywhere, hysterical. As if there was no tomorrow. We guzzled beer as we danced all together in a large circle, gyrating as though possessed; we were possessed. We showed off our wares: trembling hips, breasts in wet blouses, you boys with bared chests, muscled arms and shoulders, supple hips. Back and forth, from the red and black dance floor to cool blue water to hot yellow sand, until we collapsed, exhausted, as the day darkened indigo and the heat softened.

Later, the music was slower, a heavy reggae that silenced us, its deep bass directing us to concentrate harder on our bodies, churn our hips low, low, lower, then snake up against one another. We separated into couples, moving slow, giggling. Murmurs and wet kisses. We all had our favorites, didn't we? You wanted Dorcas that day, I know, I was watching, but she was with Robert, remember? How come Dorcas has escaped all this? Anyway, you turned to me, and I accepted, why not? That night, that moment, offered itself to us.

That was one of the very last times we were all together before we abandoned the group games. That brilliant day will never

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fade; the light of it will hang suspended forever, after we're all gone. It was real. The sun over the bright blue expanse of Lake Victoria was on our side. We drowned ourselves in it. That day will keep us young forever.

David, it's been, what, five months since I last saw you? Did you get kisipi, David? Have you lost weight yet? There was deliberate irony in the way it was first called "slim," or rather sir-rimu. I like how we mock ourselves, even as we resign ourselves to fate. How many of us city girls were happy when we first slimmed down, I wonder. Village women prefer to stay fat, of course. Have your cheekbones become pronounced, angular, even elegant? Do your tyts bulge out from a hollow face like those images of beautiful Ethiopian starvation victims? Has your skin lost its shimmer, like mine has? Has your tight kink of hair become loose and limp? Has it fallen out, exposing head sores? Are you, like many others, hiding under a cap, scarves, long-sleeved shirts, long socks in the heat? Are you cowering in a corner, whimpering like a beaten-down dog, or are you angry? I soon will be like you, anyhow, decomposing while still alive. How dare you do this to me? I must blame you, David, anyone. But what good does that do?

I thought I'd never say this, but I hope I won't see you again. I mean it. I prefer to imagine you as whole, the David I was obsessed with. The only consolation I have is that you won't sleep with anyone else again. Is that love? But what does that matter now?

Sometimes I imagine a man and woman who have hidden the signs so successfully that they become attracted to each other. In

drunken recklessness, in the dark, they undress, silently persuading themselves, someone gave it to me, so what, so what? While they grope each other, fumbling with zips and buttons quickly like thieves, they feel the same splotchy skin on each other and shrink back in shock. They untangle themselves, pick their clothes up from the floor, and slink off, sobered, ashamed, disgusted. Or maybe they simply hesitate, breathe hard for a few seconds, then go on fumbling, caressing, pretending the skin is soft: to the touch. Why not? It s too late now, they tell themselves. And so they fuck, desperate, desolate, crying as they come.

Mary was not like that; she chose to turn away from life. I went to see her just before she died. Would you believe she was more beautiful than ever before.^ As thin as a stick, her cheekbones jutting out like two knives, her doe eyes larger than life. Her eyes poured out what we all thought but couldn't say, what I am trying to say now. She was too weak to get out of bed. She lay there like a starving queen, delicate and regal, lifting a long thin graceful arm to ask for her basin to spit in. All her movements were slow, studied, weary. It was hard for her to talk; each sentence terrible labor. Her mind wandered, revealing only snatches of thought before she was overcome by the effort and coughed painfully, weakly. I have never felt as lost as I did in that small, shadowed sickroom, watching Mary die gracefully, watching her accept it. As if this was the logical end to her life. The point of it all. You know Mary was not religious, she didn't even go through the requisite "saved" period in high school, but now, now she clutched a purple rosary in one bony hand, and stared at picture-book drawings of a mournful blond Jesus on all four walls. His

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arms, in wide white sleeves like wings, were spread out, beckoning. To where?

Mary wanted to know who else had died, was dying; that was the only news that mattered. I told her about the time Nassuna saw me on Jinja Road and crossed the street in a hurry, refusing to answer even when I called. Can you imagine? I mean, we were best friends once, and its just a disease, isn't it? No one has escaped. No one is innocent. Nassuna still looked good, though, I must say, but she was wearing stockings, as though she had just come back from London or somewhere. What clearer sign is there? Mary smiled when I said this, and I saw a glimpse of her sarcastic old self, but then she sighed wearily, and seemed to pull a gray curtain back over her face.

As I looked at her, I couldn't help thinking, how will I die? Surely not like this. Will I turn to Jesus at the last minute? I had given him up a long time ago. That was too easy, I wanted to tell Mary. But who am I to talk? Each one of us has to die alone. Each one has to find her own way. Mary's awful beauty, her sick, musty breath, broke me, and I couldn't stop my tears. I, who had come to comfort her, leaned over her frail body and cried. She put her hand softly on my head. A weak, dry, feathery hand like an angel's, like death, and she was silent.

Silence was like another death at Mary's funeral. You did not miss anything, David, though you were a coward not to come. Burials are not infectious, you know. The bus ride to Kabale was hell; maybe you wouldn't have made it. I didn't know Mary's family was so popular, or perhaps some of the guests were after meat and gossip. As usual, the men sat around a fire outside the

house, while the women were either in the kitchen preparing huge saucepans of meat stew and matooke, or were sitting on the living room floor around the coffin, keeping the body company. That was the saddest hymn singing I have ever heard, because it was so bad.

Nearer my God to thee, Nearer to thee. E'en though it he a cross That raiseth me.

The words were dragged out so slow and painfully, I had to escape. But it wasn't any better around the fire outside. We sat silent, watching the fire's fighting-red glow and spark, but it failed to inspire us. Who would be next? There was nothing but the dull, meek acceptance of the inevitable. All through the two days of the funeral the cause of Mary's death was not announced. Everyone knew and whispered it back and forth, shaking their heads sorrowfully, fearfully, their palms cradling sagging cheeks. To me, they seemed to simply be making the right gestures, the expected posture. If they were sincere, why didn't they stop gossiping and just state the facts? As though whispering around it would keep it at bay. It was already there, among us. In us. It was too late. Many of us were secretly relieved it wasn't us this time, not just yet. We had a few more days, months, maybe a year to ... to what? To do nothing but silently deteriorate?

I got so tired of the silence, David. The unnecessary shame. I should have run out of Mary's death room screaming, Noooo! At

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her funeral, I should have ranted wildly about how we enjoyed life, despite everything. What did I, do I, have to lose? I want to fight it. They say that long ago funerals sometimes turned into celebrations, and now I see why. I imagine orgies even; sex as a loud, unrestrained, mocking laugh at death. After the burial, in the dark, dark nights beyond the glow of the fires, deep in the banana plantations, with stripped-down, damp, soft stems as cushioning, men and women mourned together. They fought death by showing how alive they were, right then, in the face of it. Let us live, their bodies would say. Let's make more life! More of life. We die because we have lived. The dead are always with us. Bodies writhed together, and it was good. What better way is there to bury your dead, if not to go lustfiilly after life? I must scream against death just like I used to with life. I must live even harder.

I displayed my body once and men approved. I will do so again with burning scars, leaking sores, gray skin. This is all I have left: to die loudly, saying, Yes, I have AIDS. Let's turn around and face it.

Will you join me, shouting out loud, just like you did before?

Rosa

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Tropical Fish

Peter always plopped down heavily on top of me after he came, breathing short and fast, as if he had just swum across Lake Victoria. My worry that he was dying was quickly dispelled by his deep snores, moments after he rolled off me. I was left wondering exactly what I was doing there, in the middle of the night, next to a snoring white man. And why was it that men fell asleep so easily, so deeply, after huffing and puffing over you? There I was, awake, alone with my thoughts, loud in my head and never ending, like a ghost train. Sex was like school, something I just did. I mean, of course I wanted to. I took myself there, no one forced me.

Peter was pink, actually, not white, except for his hair, what was left of it. It had suddenly turned color from the stress of his first rough years in Uganda trying to start his fish export business. He was only thirty-five, but to me at twenty, that was ancient. When naked, though, he looked fourteen. He had an adolescent plumpness, a soft body, almost effeminate, with pale

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saggy legs. His skin felt just like mine. We met through Zac, a campus friend who also worked for Peter's company. Peter exported tropical fish bought from all over the country: Lake Victoria, Albert, Kyoga, and River Nile. He paid next to nothing to the local fishermen, then sent the fish in tank loads to Britain for pet shops. Very good profits.

Zac and I were both at Makerere University, what used to be called "the Harvard of Africa" south of the Sahara, not counting South Africa, which didn't leave much else. But that was back in the sixties, before Big Daddy, Idi Amin, tried to kill off as many professors as he could. Most ran into exile, and the "economic war" did the rest of the damage. But we didn't complain; we were lucky to be there.

I was drinking Waragi in Zac's room when Peter came in one evening. I liked Zac because he knew he wasn't going to become some big shot in life and so didn't even try. Apparently he supplied Peter with ganja. Because of my lifelong training to catch a suitable mate, when Peter walked in I found myself imxmediately turning on the sweet, simpering self I reserve for men. I recede into myself, behind an automatic plastic-doll smile. Peter looked amused by the shabby room. He looked around like a wide-eyed tourist at the cracked and peeling paint, the single bare bulb, an old tattered poster of Bob Marley on the wall, the long line of dog-earred Penguin Classics leaning sideways on Zac's desk, the untidy piles of handwritten class notes. He was finishing his B.A. in literature.

Zac got off his chair quickly and offered it to Peter. "Hey, man." Zac had convinced himself he was black American. We

laughed at the nasal way he talked, the slang from videos, his crippled-leopard swagger, especially for someone so short. I kept telling him, "Give up, Zac, no one's impressed," but that was his way.

Peter refused the chair and gingerly settled onto Zac's single bed, which was covered with a thin brown blanket. The mzungu wanted to do the slumming right. I was sitting at the other end of the bed. Its tired springs creaked and created a deep hole in the middle as he sat down. I felt myself leaning over as if to fall into the hole, too close to Peter, into his warm personal space. I shifted away and sat up on the pillow, pulling my legs up into me. Did he think I didn't want to sit too close to him, a white man? There was a short, uncomfortable silence. But with the two men there, I didn't have to start the conversation.

Zac said, "How about a drink, man? Peter, meet Christine, the beautifullest chick on campus." He was trying to be suave, but it sounded more like mockery. I smiled like a fool.

Peter turned and smiled back at me. "Nice to meet you, Christine." No teeth showed, only the small, gray shadow of his mouth. I put a limp hand into his outstretched one. He squeezed it hard, like a punishment. His skin was hot. I murmured something back, still smiling about nothing, then took a large swallow from my drink, keeping my face in the glass.

Zac reached into a small dark cupboard. Inside were two red, oily-looking plastic plates, a green plastic mug, a dusty glass with two or three spoons and forks in it, a tin of salt, and another of Kimbo cooking fat. He took out the glass, removed the spoons and blew into it. With his finger, he rubbed off a dead insect's

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wing stuck to the inside. "I've got to wash this. I'll be right back," and he left me alone in the tiny, shadowless room with Peter. It was my first time alone with a white person. There was a nervous, bare-bulbed silence.

Peter turned to look around the plain one-desk, one-chair, one-bed room with an obvious smirk. I wished I could open the window and let in the coolness of the night outside. But I didn't want to move, and mosquitoes would quickly drone in. It was raining lightly outside, pitter-patter on the glass, which made the small square lights of the next hall shimmer like a black and yellow curtain, far away and inaccessible. Wisps of white hair at the back of Peter's head stuck out unevenly over his collar. The light's shine moved over the bare pink hilltop of his head as he turned to me.

"So, are you a student here too?"

"Yes." Soft and shallow.

"Yes? And what do you study, Christine?" Like a kind uncle to a five-year-old.

"Sociology."

"Sociooo-logy?" He stretched out the word, and couldn't hide his amusement. "That's quite impressive. You must be a very intelligent girl." His smile was kind in an evilish, shadowed-mouth way. I smiled back, showing him that /, at least, had big bright teeth. There. I don't think he noticed.

Luckily Zac came back at that moment. I quickly swallowed the rest of my drink and left. In the warm, just-rained night, the wet grass and soaked ground smelt fertile. I dodged the puddles in the cracked pavement, which twinkled with reflected street-

lamp light. Not that I really noticed, I was too busy beating myself inside. You smiling fool, why didn't you say something clever? Almost walking past my hall, I wondered why I was so unsettled, even intrigued.

That weekend, Zac told me Peter wanted us to visit him at his house on Tank Hill.

"Me? Why?"

"The mzungu likes you." He chuckled shortly, dryly.

"Don't be silly. I'm not going."

"Come on, we'll have fun. There'll be lots to drink, eat, videos too. Bring Miriam if you want."

We went in the end, of course. Because Peter lives on top of Tank Hill, one of Kampala's seven hills, like Rome, as we were always told in class. Up there, diplomats' huge mansions hide behind high cement walls lined across the top with shards of cutting glass. Rent is paid in dollars only. Swimming pools, security guards, and he wanted me. Nothing would happen if I went with Zac and Miriam, my tall Tutsi friend, who Peter would prefer anyway, I told myself She had the kind of looks whites like: very thin, with high angular cheekbones and jaw, large slanting eyes. And she was so daring, did whatever she wanted with a bold stare and brash laugh. No simpering for her. She even smoked in public. I was safe.

It was fun, sort of Peter was overly attentive, serving drinks, plumping pillows, asking questions. We ate in courses brought in by his houseboy, Deogracias, an old man with crooked spindly

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legs attached to big bare feet like boats. Black on bright pink. Deo spoke to us in Luganda, but not to Peter, of course. As if we were at his houseboy level. Later, I told Zac and Miriam I found Deo's familiarity vaguely offensive, as if he was saying, I've seen your kind pass through this house before. They both laughed it off "Christine, you're too much. What's wrong with being friendly?"

Peter chose Karate Kid for us to watch, saying it was our kind of movie. How would he know? I concentrated on gin and tonics. This was a whole world away from home, from school. The brightly painted, big-windowed house smelt of mosquito repellent from emerald rings smoking discreetly in every room. Bright batiks on clean white walls, shiny glass cupboards full of drinks and china. Everything worked: the phone, the hot water taps, a dustbin you clicked open with your foot. No need to touch. As soon as the power went off, a generator switched itself on automatically, with a reassuring low hum.

We turned off the lights to watch the movie, and Peter somehow snuggled up close to me. I pretended not to notice as I sank into the comfort of having all my needs satisfied. There was nothing to worry about. The drinks eased me. When the movie was over, the lights stayed off Peter prepared a joint and we all became giggly Everything slowed down pleasantly. He moved back close to me and stroked my trousered thigh up and down, up and down, gently, absentmindedly. It was soothing. I sat still. I didn't have to do anything.

Zac talked in a monotonous drone about the hidden treasures of Egypt, the esoteric wisdom that Aristotle stole, or was it Plato,

and then the Egyptians forgot everything. Peter asked, "Why didn't they write it down?" and we all laughed for a very long time. Miriam got up and weaved around the room, holding her head, saying, "I feel mellow. Very, very mellow." Over and over, giggling. Peter led her to his spare bedroom that was always ready, with clean sheets, soft lamps, and its own multi-mirrored bathroom. He brought Zac a bedcover for the sofa, then took me to his room as though it was the practical, natural thing to do. It felt sort of like a privilege. The Master Bedroom.

In the bathroom he got me a new toothbrush from a packet of about twenty, already opened. "You have many visitors?" I wondered out loud. He laughed and kissed me on the mouth. "Women?" I mumbled, as he ate up my lips. I thought about the wrapping: colored blue plastic over the cardboard box, each toothbrush wrapped again in its own plastic, and lying in its own little cardboard coffin. I wanted to keep the box, but didn't dare ask; he would have laughed at me again.

I lay on the bed in my clothes. Peter took off his clothes and draped them neatly folded over a chair, pointing two small pale buttocks toward me as he leaned over. Then he took my blouse and pants off methodically, gently, like it was the best thing to do, like I was sick and he was a nurse, and I just lay there. In the same practical way he lay down and stroked me for a few appropriate minutes, put on a condom, opened my legs, and stuck his penis in. I couldn't bring myself to hold him in any convincing way. I thought I should moan and groan and act feverish, overcome by a wild rage of some sort, like white people in movies. But I was feeling well fed and well taken care of; a child ftiU of

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warm milk. One thought was constant in my head like a newspaper headline: I am having sex with a white man. It was strange because it wasn't strange. He was done in a few minutes. He tucked me under his arm like an old habit, and we sank into sleep.

Peter became my comfortable habit. On Friday evenings I escaped from the usual round of campus parties to go to my old white man; my snug, private life. No one scrutinized me, questioned my motives, or made any judgments, up on Tank Hill, except Deo. He was a silent, knowing, irritating reminder of the real, ordinary world, my place in it. But when Deo had cleared up the supper things and left to go scrub his huge bare boat-feet with a stone, I was free to walk around the large, airy house naked, a gin and tonic melting in my hand. This made me feel floaty, a clean open hanky wandering in the wind. I didn't have to squash myself into clothes, pull in my stomach, tie my breasts up in a bra, worry about anything, be anything. Who cared what Peter thought? He said nonsensical things like, "You're so many colors all over, how come?"

"What about your red neck?"

"That's 'coz I'm a redneck, luv."

"I thought so."

"Come here, you!" Our tussle ended up in bed.

My eldest sister, Patti, might have heard about Peter from someone. She was a born-again Christian, like I was once. "Saved,'

with too clear and rigid a sense of right and wrong. But she wouldn't say, "Stop seeing that white man." Instead, she told me of a dream she'd had: that I was given drugs by some whites. "They only want to use you," she said. I didn't answer. What could I say, that it actually was okay? Her self-righteousness made me want to go right back to Peter's.

For some reason I told him Patti's dream. He laughed at me. I heard "superstitious, ignorant blacks!" in his laugh. Maybe not, but like with most things between us, I wasn't going to try and explain it, what one can see or read in dreams. I don't mean that they're true. But we couldn't climb over that laugh to some sort of understanding. Or didn't want to try.

One weekend, Zac told me they had gone to the Entebbe Sailing Club with another girl, some young ignorant waitress or something. "Why are you telling me?" I scoffed. Didn't he think I knew Peter? I didn't like the sailing club anyway; it was practically white only because of the high membership fees and selective sponsorship rules. I felt very black over there. Zac was surprised I didn't seem to care about the other girls. Why squander feelings, I told myself What was more annoying to me was Peter's choice of those waitress types.

Deogracias called him Mr. Peter. I asked him, after two months or more, what his last name was. He said, "Call me Mr. Peter," and chuckled. He enjoyed the lavishing of respect I knew he didn't get from anyone back home. Mr. Smithson, I read on a letter of his. How ordinary. Whenever he whined about the insects everywhere, the terrible ice cream, and only one Chinese restaurant, I wanted to tell him I knew he was lower class, Cock-

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ney, and doing much better here, practically stealing our fish, than he ever would in Britain. So he should just shut up. But of course I didn't. Our Lady of the Smiles and Open Body.

When Peter called one Friday evening, I was having my period. I felt I shouldn't go; what for? But I couldn't tell him that, not so bluntly. How could we openly admit that he wanted me for sex, and I knew it, and agreed? Over the phone, moreover? It was easier for me to say nothing, as usual. I took a taxi to his house, and he paid for it. Peter had already started on the evening's drinks with muchomo, roasted meat, on his verandah. A Danish man was visiting, one of the usual aid types, who Peter had just met. These expats quickly made friends with one another; being white was enough. They grouped together at Half-London, a collection of little shops lined along a dusty road at the bottom of Tank Hill. At each storefront, melting in the hazy heat, plastic chairs sat under gaudy red and white umbrellas advertising Coca-Cola and Sportsman cigarettes with the loud slogan. Ye, Ssebol With all the beer-drinking and prostitute-hunting going on, it was a let's-pretend-we're-local hangout I avoided.

I put off telling Peter about my period, but felt guilty for some reason. Finally, in bed with the lights off, he reached for me as usual, but I moved away. "I'm having my period."

"What?" I had never said no to him.

"You know . . . my period. I'm bleed—"

"Oh, I see. Well—" He lay back on the bed, a litde put out.

But he fell asleep pretty soon all the same. Instead of relief, I felt empty, a box of air.

That Christmas, Peter went off to Nairobi. He left very cheer-ftilly, wearing a brightly flowered shirt, the sun glinting off his sparse white hair and pink baldness. The perfect picture of a retiree set for a cruise. He was off to enjoy the relative comforts of Kenya, the movie theaters, safari lodges, maybe Mombasa's beach resorts. He had sent off a good number of rare fish; it was time for a holiday.

In town, as Peter dropped me off, he kissed me on the mouth, in the middle of Luwum Street, in front of the crowds, before breezing away. I was left in the bustling, dusty street, feeling the people's stares like the sun burning. Who was this girl being kissed in broad daylight by some old mzungui Aahaa, these malayas are becoming too bold. Couldn't she find a younger one at the Sheraton? One man shouted to Peter, for the crowd, in Luganda, "She's going to give you AIDS, look how thin she is!" Everyone laughed. Another one answered, "It's their fault, these bazungUy they like their women thin. Let them fall sick." General laughter.

I walked down to the taxi park, ignoring them. A girl like me didn't spend her time in the streets arguing with bayaye. I had better things to do. Not over Christmas, but he would come back. Call me when he needed me, and I would escape to the big white house, the gin-and-tonic life, my holiday. Well, campus too was a kind of holiday before real life ahead of me: work, if I

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could get it, at a government job that didn't pay, in a dusty old colonial-style office; wearing shoes in desperate need of repair; eating roasted maize for lunch; getting debts and kids; becoming my parents. One option was marriage to someone from the right family, the right tribe, right pocketbook and potbelly, and have him pay the bills. With my degree I would be worth exotic cows, Friesians or Jerseys, not the common long-horned Ankole cattle. But I didn't have to think about that for two more years. For now, I had my game: being someone else, or no one, for a few hours.

Peter brought me bubble-bath soap from Nairobi because I said I'd never used it before. He prepared the bath for me. Water gushed out of both taps forever. Abundance, the luxury of wasting. If you've never fetched water, known how heavy the jerrycans can be, how each drop is precious, you can't really enjoy a bubble bath. To luxuriate in a whole bathtub of water, just for you. The lovely warm green froth was a caress all over.

Peter undressed and joined me, his penis curled up shyly in his red pubic hair. He spread my thighs gently and played with my lips. I closed my eyes, shutting out everything but his careful, practiced touch. Sank, sank, into the pleasure of it. The warm water flopped around, splashing out onto the white bath mat and shiny mirrors. Peter crept up over me and entered slowly, and I thought, maybe I do care for him, maybe this is all that love is. A tender, comfortable easing into me.

I found out I was pregnant. We used condoms most of the time. I didn't say anything when we didn't. My breasts started to swell.

and my heart grew suspicious, as though my belly had secretly passed on the message. When my period was more than twelve days late, I told Miriam. I couldn't tell Peter. It didn't seem to be his problem; not a part of our silent sex pact. This was personal. Miriam's sister, Margaret, a nurse, worked at a private clinic in the city. Nobody stopped me, they all knew it had to be done. I tried not to think about it. At the clinic, the anesthetist droned at me in a deep, kind voice as he injected me. I was going to remain conscious but wouldn't feel anything, he said. Just like real life. The doctor was cream-gloved, efficient, and kind, like Peter. I fell into pleasant dreaminess. Why did I always seem to have my legs spread open before kind men poking things into me? I let them.

At the clinic, I read an article about all the species offish that are disappearing from Uganda's freshwater lakes and rivers because of the Nile perch. It was introduced by the colonial government Fisheries Development Department in the fifties. The Nile perch is ugly and tasteless, but it is huge, and provides a lot more food for the populace. But it was eating up all the smaller, rarer, gloriously colored tropical fish. Many of these rare species were not named, let alone discovered, before they disappeared. Every day, somewhere deep and dark, it was too late.

Margaret gave me antibiotics and about two years' supply of the pill, saying curtly, "I hope we don't see you here again." I was

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rather worried, though, because the doctor said I should not have sex for at least two weeks. What would I tell Peter when he called? Maybe I should say what happened. Now that I had dealt with the problem, I wasn't bothering him with it. I just wanted to tell him.

I went to Peter s office without calling, not knowing what to say. It was on Barclay Street, where all the major airline and cargo offices are, convenient for his business. It was surprising how different Peter was at work: his serious twin, totally sober, a rare sight for me. He got authority from somewhere and turned into the boss, no longer the drunken lover. Once, at night, he told me how worried he was because all the workers depended on him— what if he failed? This talk, the concern, made me uncomfortable. This wasn't my picture of him.

The first time Peter took me to his office, on my way back to school, an Indian businessman came in to see him. The Asians were coming back, fifteen years after Amin gave them seventy-two hours to pack up and leave the country. They were tentatively reestablishing themselves, which didn't please the Ugandan business class too much.

Peter led the short, bustling black-turbaned man into his back office, where I was sitting. The Indian glanced my way and back at Peter, summing up the situation. After a curt "How are you?" he dismissed me and turned to business. Jagjit had come to sell Peter dollars, which was illegal except through the Bank of Uganda, but everyone did it anyway, by magendo, the black market. He produced a thick envelope and drew out old, tattered green notes. Peter checked each one carefully, rubbed it between

his palms, held it up under the light, turned it over, and scrutinized it until he was satisfied. He put aside one note, then went back to it after checking them all. He said, "Sorry, Jagjit, this one's no good." It was a one-hundred-dollar bill. That was about one million shillings.

"No, no, that cant be. I got this from Sunjab Patel—^you know him—over in Industrial Area." Very fast, impatient.

"Yeah, but I'm telling you it's not worth anything. Look here—" and they compared it to another, straining their necks and heads from note to note. Finally, Peter picked up the false note and, with his usual smirk, slowly tore it in two, steadily watching Jagjit's face. He was too shocked to protest, his large brown eyes fixed on the half-notes in each of Peter's raised hands. Peter held the torn pieces over the dustbin and let them float down slowly into it, all of us watching. "You've got to be careful; anyone can cheat you around here," he said, and shrugged. Peter turned to his safe, snug in a corner, and pulled out a canvas bag, which he emptied onto the table. Jagjit counted the many bundles of weary-looking Ugandan notes. He was flustered; whether with embarrassment or annoyance, I couldn't tell. He packed them up and out he rushed, after one last look at the torn note, as if he wanted to grab it out of the rubbish bin and run. Poor him, I thought, but then again, he deserved it for giving me the once-over and deciding I didn't count.

Peter shook his head slowly. "The bastard."

"I don't think he knew."

Peter reached over and took the half-notes from the dustbin, patted them off, and laid them together on the table.

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"Peter!"

He smiled to himself, then looked up. "What if I gave it to you?"

"What!? What would /do with it?"

"My little Christian Christine," and he chuckled.

This time, Peter was busy with a group of men who were loading a pickup parked on the street. I was startled again by the way he was at work: stern and controlling, giving directions in a loud voice, striding up and down. Then he saw me.

"What are you doing here?" Brusque and impatient.

"I was just passing by." I felt horribly in the way.

"I'm busy."

"But—I—I have something to tell you."

"Okay, okay, wait."

He waved me on into his back office. After a short while he followed. But, somehow, I couldn't say it, so I asked him for a piece of paper and biro, which made him even more exasperated. I wrote down, "I have just had an abortion."

Peter took the paper, smiling impatiently, thinking I was playing a childish game. His usual smile got stuck for an instant. A hint of what looked like anger flickered across his boyish face. He didn't look up at me. He took the biro from me, wrote something down, and passed the note back across the table. It read, "Do you want some money?"

I read it, glanced up at him quickly, then away, embarrassed. Back to his five little words. I shook my head no, my face low-

ered away from him, no, not money. I had nothing to say, and he said nothing back. After a bleak silence, like the silence while we made love, far away from each other, I got up to leave.

"I'll call you, okay?" Always kind.

"Okay." Always agreeing. Yes, okay, yes.

As I walked out, Peter's men moved aside in that over-respectful way they treat whites, but with a mocking exaggeration acted out for their black women. As usual, I ignored them, but shrank inside as Peter kissed me dryly on the lips, in front of them all, before I left.

The street was hard and hot. Filled with people walking through their lives so purposefully, up and down the street, so in control. But they seemed to be backing away from me. Did I look strange? Was there blood on my dress? The hot, dusty air blown up by the noisy, rushing traffic filled my head like thunder.

Did I want money? What did I want? Bubble baths, gin and tonics, ganja sex, the clean, airy white house where I could forget the hot dust outside, school, my all too ordinary life, the bleak future? A few hours free from myself Was that so bad? Had I wanted him to care, of all people? He was trying to help, I supposed. I'm sure the only Africans he knew needed money. Six months of sex, and did I want money? What did we want from each other? Not a baby, obviously. Nothing that permanent. Our baby. What a joke. I discarded my baby like I did my body, down a pit latrine crawling with cockroaches.

I waded through the taxi-park bedlam into a matatu, and was

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Tropical Fish

squashed up on all sides by strangely comforting fat hips, warm arms, moist breath. The old engine roared to a start, blocking out the radio's loud wail ofsoukous. The driver revved the engine repeatedly to get passengers to come running, as if we were leaving right away, only to sit for another fifteen minutes. The conductor screamed for more, for more people, ordering us to move over, squash up, we all wanted to get home, didn't we? Hawkers pushed cheap plastic through the windows into our faces, their spit landing on our cheeks. The voice of one of them pierced through the noise, pleading insistently for me, me, to buy some Orbit chewing gum for my young children at home. "Auntie, remember the children, be nice to the children!"

We finally moved away, swaying and bumping up and down together with each dive in and out of potholes, each swerve to avoid the oncoming cars that headed straight toward us like life. I closed my eyes, willing the noise and heat and sweat to recede to the very back of my mind. The glaring sun hit us all.

vtt

Lost in Los Angeles

I am here, but I am not. Flying on a plane from Uganda to New York to Los Angeles doesn't really take you there. The United States of America. The desert of Los Angeles, cut across by long wide strips of gray asphalt that are too smooth to be real. Not a bump is felt as you cover distance; it's hard to tell you are even moving. As far as I know, roads have potholes and car rides are often treacherous. But here, they are flat and endless, matching the hard, high, indifferent rocks scattered with small dry shrubs like mean little favors. Los Angeles. I'm trying to put my feet firmly on the ground. I'm trying to be here.

I am in L.A., not any other American city, because my cousin Kema lived here; she went back home a month after I arrived. I didn't know her before, but we share blood, so of course she opened her doors to me. Kema came to America in her late teens to study, and spent almost all her adult life here. But despite her

Lost in Los Angeles

Americanness, I could see home in her; she shared her family's sharp wit and rather mocking smile.

On my first day in L.A., Kema took me on a drive-by tour through Sunset Boulevard, the lush mansions of Beverly Hills, the endless, flashy Wilshire Boulevard, and back to downtown L.A. to the cardboard tents, the scattered misery, trash, and desperadoes of skid row. I was still jet-lagged and fatigued after almost two days of flight from Uganda, so all I absorbed was a surreal sequence of enormous, shiny images and grayish dirty despair rushing past the car window. Kema's voice-over alternated between admiration, envy, scorn, and pity. I was stunned by the absurdly exaggerated opposites only a few miles from each other. More shaken than your typical tourist, I think, because I had nothing to compare such opulence with, however garish some of it appeared later. And I thought I knew what real poverty looked like. Skid row? In my jet-lagged state, I felt I was in a nightmare back home, because almost all the pitiful rejects were black like me. But we don't have skid row.

An image of my father fallen and mumbling in drunken slumber by the side of a street in Entebbe rose in my mind, replacing the misery outside the window. At least he had grass to fall on. My sisters and I took turns dragging him home. My cousin's voice brought me abruptly back to L.A. "See the Ban-yankore of here?" She warned. "This could happen to you too if you don't work hard." She switched to her American twang, "Wake up, honey, and smell the black coffee!" and laughed. She didn't really think someone like me could end up with a dirty cardboard box for a house; end up a heap of rubbish lying in the

street, did she? But who had thought Taata would end up the way he did? That was the end of his dream. This was the beginning of mine in America.

II

On Saturdays, with no one to talk to, I go up to the hills above Pasadena, driving through the sunlight, my familiar friend. I recognize the sun at least; it is a hot dry hand on my back. I own a car now, just like that. I have learned how to drive an automatic; it's so easy. So now I just get in and go, like any other Angeleno. Free, fast, and empty, to the base of the dusty bare hills, where I park and walk. The soil, like the sun, is familiar, although at home the soil is a deeper brown, thicker, not so flyaway. Here, I feel small stones rolling under the soles of my canvas shoes. I find myself searching for signs of home, as if recognizing the palm trees, heat, and hibiscus flowers will reassure me that I'm still on the same planet. But it would be silly to expect heavy green trees and grass that is thick, wet, and healthy. This dry gray color of buildings, road, dust, and smog has its own sad beauty. I've noticed there are no butterflies here, not even houseflies that land heavy and stinking on your face, reminding you of the living. No animal smells or wafts of dead and rotting things in the air. Only the sun: a constant that leads me sweating, up, up the hill and, thankfully, out of my head.

Once at the top, looking into the distance, I can tell where downtown Los Angeles is by the brown cloud hanging over it

like a threatening storm. But it doesn't rain in L.A. The cloud of smog is an empty promise, no, a menace. But whatever it forebodes, it's too late; this is where I have chosen to be now. I cannot, will not take the next plane home.

Tired of the lonely walks, I sign up to join a walking group advertised in Pasadena's local paper. At least I'm trying. Someone must have ordered the group to wear a uniform of blue jeans, T-shirts with catchy slogans, and huge white sneakers like boats. I wasn't told, so I'm wearing a wide skirt. We walk through the same Altadena hills I've been through, but at dusk. The sun is softer now. I'm the only one on my own, so I walk behind the family groups, eavesdropping. The children's nonstop whiny voices grate on my ears. How long will it take them to become the gray-haired couple walking ahead, hand in hand in companionable silence? I envy the two, merging into one in the growing dark. May the dark hide my loneliness.

Moving at an easy pace, we reach the top. The group leader talks about the few plants that grow in this semi-desert: creosote bushes, burroweeds, chaparral. I wish people didn't always want to know things, to make a lesson of everything. I stand apart, trying to tune him out. He is huge, with legs like a giant in a picture book, a head like a TV, and thick, sloppy lips. He sprays a little saliva with every long botanical name he rolls out. Pick-eringia montana. The parents prod their kids to shut up and listen; this has to be a useful trip.

Suddenly, in the smoky darkness among the mingling group.

fireflies appear and flicker on and off, on and off. Everyone goes, "Ooooh!" Even Mr. TV-Head and the children are silenced. Then the kids squeal and point, while the adults smile and rub their kids' hair. We watch the tiny, brilliant sparks, like difficult insights, hesitant happiness or seconds ticking, fleeting by, un-catchable. "We have many of those at home, everywhere." I am as surprised as the others to hear my own voice, which is raspy from non-use and strange even to me after a whole evening of American voices. The others turn as one to me and ask where. I am not left alone all the way down the hill as we return. The kids, especially, are fascinated. "Africa!? Do you have lions and giraffes as pets? Do you eat zebra sandwiches? Please take me back with you?" They will not let me escape back into myself The friendliness is overwhelming. I don't want it, or do I? Like the fireflies, I cannot decide: yes, no, yes, no, yes.

I've got to make a living right away, so I get a job temping. I wade through piles of paper daily in one of the thousands of cubicles in the ARCO twin towers of downtown L.A. The black glass buildings point to the sky like fat thumbs. They are ugly but optimistic: the sky's the limit. I don't like glass that I can't see through. Dark glass that reflects back only shadow. We who work in the immense buildings are nothing but ants that crawl in and out, day and night.

I earn twelve dollars an hour, which is more money than I have ever made in my life, even with the Ministry of Public Service job I had back home. Of course, it's nonsensical to compare

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that world and this. What to do but spend? I buy things, which is fun. I buy and buy and buy. A car to be paid for over six years (that's painless); a new bed with a shiny gold bedstead, matching bedside tables, mirror, and a chest of drawers; a dining room set of blue metal and glass; office clothes, party clothes, barbecue clothes, disco clothes, workout clothes, nice church clothes (I don't go to church anymore, but you never know), more party clothes (in case I do start going to parties, and they look so nice, and I don't have to start paying till October, and anyway it's my money), casual clothes, shoes, shoes, shoes. I can get them in different colors: brown, black, white, navy, red, oh yts, I must have red shoes. Plus, what else is there to do on a Saturday morning but drive my car to the mall and try on sneakers, high heels, flats, boots? No one, as far as I can see, wears worn soles or fish shoes, that is, shoes so old they tear wide open at the front and look like gaping fish mouths. No one has shoes so old they have wrinkled and bent themselves into the shape of the owner's feet. Except the homeless, of course.

Now, with all this variety of shoes and clothes, I'll be ready for anything, when anything comes along. Oh, but I also need a stereo, radio, TV, and kitchen things: saucepans, cups, plates, and dishes. I buy complete sets with matching flowery designs. For once, for the first time in my life, everything here is mine. It's chosen by me, it's all new, and I paid for it. These things aren't my parents' or for the family, they are not hand-me-downs, secondhands, discards, oh no. Brand new. All I've got to do is give the salesperson my card, and she lets me take whatever I

want. I don't have to pay until next month, or November, or next year. I can do it over five years. I could even win the lottery and not have to work at all: just go shopping. My apartment is filling up with things. They don't move or talk or make any sound. They just sit there. They make me feel full. Fed up, as Idi Amin would say. Shopping and unpacking and rearranging is exhausting. But it's necessary. It gives me something to do.

Most of the temps I work with are young, and are trying, or pretending to try, to do something else. Or they don't really know what to do except earn a living, just like me. There's a screenwriter who almost got a script made into a movie by Warner Bros. Almost. There are acting students from Pomona College, L.A. Community College, USC. An aerobics instructor who says he is just about to get his own TV exercise show. And the older faded beauty, well, she used to act long ago but now teaches theater part-time. Oh, him? He's just a loser; he isn't going anywhere. Do you see what he gets for lunch every day? French fries. Every day. He's definitely suicidal. All that animal fat! And what about you? they all ask, sooner or later.

"Me? Well, I've just come to the States. I won an immigration lottery, so I came."

"Lucky you! Isn't America a great country? We open our arms wide to anyone, from anywhere. Where did you say you come from? Uganda? Where's that? In Aay-frica!? No kidding! That's a long way away, isn't it?"

"Yes." Well, no. Uganda—Entebbe, to be exact—is right here in my mind; it's where I am. I'm not sure where this is. Los Angeles is still just a word, a pretty word for elsewhere.

Back to work we go, to read document after document on oil spills. We are on the wrong side, that of the oil company. From all the way on the other side of the globe, I am suddenly involved, and guilty too, because I am making money from the suffocation of seals and ducks and fish that floated up dead, bloated with oil. How come I don't quit? Because it could be worse. For me, that is. Skid row is my excuse.

The paperwork is endless, like a wheel turning forever. The documents don't talk, my cubicle walls are high and gray. I plan to bring in pictures, a plant, next time, next time. Maybe I don't want to feel at home. There is no need to talk except to ask for more documents. I now know more about oil production than I ever thought possible. The oil spill soaks my dreams. I am deep, deep under the cold Alaskan ocean, frozen, slick, drinking oil for a living. I wake up dead to take another bus downtown toward the brown cloud that hangs over Los Angeles. This is where I have chosen to live.

It's the small things that bother me most. My teeth aren't white, straight, and perfect, like everyone else's here. My teeth disturb people; they frown when I smile. Small children stare up at me, puzzled. Look Mummy, a freak! I imagine they've been taught not to say. I have to repeat myself two or three times; it's easier not to talk. Even black people don't look straight at me or talk, gesture, or act the way I do. I am just as strange to them. I

want to ask why, but dont dare to. My skirts and blouses, are they too long, too loose, too bright and flowery, out of date? I can't do my hair the complicated way I see black women do theirs. I go to a hairdresser's, and a light-skinned, haughty girl perms my hair straight and cuts it short; a "wrap," she calls it, but I can't do it again on my own at home. So I do my usual "Maria"—hair brushed straight back—but the short spiky ends don't even touch my neck.

I enter the tall glass cage of ARCO, smile, and move, robotlike, making space in the elevator for everyone else. They smile automatically at the wall or stare at the ceiling. We are all tensely silent, as if we are all heading toward the same dull punishment. We have no choice but to go up or down. Those who talk don't seem to say what they mean and are too agreeable. Their voices stretch out every vowel to its limit and slide and slip over every hard syllable. No ^'s, no ds, too many rs overemphasized. Heads move too eagerly above bodies that are stuck fast. Once I'm on my floor, I smile and try not to talk. When I do, my voice is dry and strange. I see pity in people's faces, pity or impatience. I smile at the wrong times, and people turn away. The more I try, the less sense I seem to be making. And I thought I spoke English. But I do. I speak English, everyone speaks English, but it's not the English I know. "Are you done?" my supervisor asks. "Done? How?" He rolls his eyes then raises his voice and slows down his drawl. "Are you finished y^iih. that file?" "Oh, yes, yes." I fiimble as I grab the file and hand it to him, feeling such a fool. Everyone else speaks like they do on TV, like in the movies. I

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know they are real, these voices around me, but a part of me just cannot accept this. I keep waiting for the accents to go away, to become normal, but of course they don't. I'm the one who is not normal. I've heard Africans who've been here too long talk in the same nasal way; it grows on you, unbidden. I swear never to, if I can help it. Like a good colonial subject, I like to think I have a British accent, the proper one.

Luckily, because everything works and is automatic, there is less and less need to talk. My salary mysteriously enters my account; I don't need to touch money itself, or go to the bank. I find a window-like machine and punch in some numbers. They mean something: out slips money, silently, smoothly, it must be mine. I take it. At the supermarket, I don't even need to use cash; I give the person at the counter my card and she lets me take the groceries, which are all wrapped up in four or five layers of crinkly paper and packed in colored boxes with pictures as though they were children's toys. There's no need to talk to anyone. In the supermarket, everything is laid out for you; you walk through chilly bright aisles, read the labels, pick out food. The fruits and meats smell of nothing, taste of nothing. A machine tells you how much, and the person at the counter smiles mechanically. She may say, how are you, ma'am, smiling on and off like a switch, but is she really talking to me, me, or to a body buying food? The price is fixed anyway. There is nothing to argue about, nothing to say.

I swipe my card through the metal box, my food rolls down the rubber plank, is packed quickly, efficiently, and I roll it out, down to the garage, a cement cage of cars upon cars upon cars, immense and lifeless. No one drives small cars here, and there are very few old ones. Most of the cars are huge and shiny and prosperous-looking. I have a ticket that slipped out of a metal box all by itself; it knew I needed it, it knew I was there. I took the ticket and somehow a long pole rose up, letting me into the garage. The same thing happens in reverse as I leave, only this time there's a person hidden behind a glass cage. He or she doesn't glance my way, and after I've done this enough times, neither do 1.1 slip my ticket and a few dollars into a metal drawer, which slips into the glass cage, slides back out with change, and the long pole ahead of me rises up. Smoothly, soundlessly, straight and narrow. Metal, metal everywhere, and I need a drink.

The same thing happens at my apartment. After the wide flat perfect roads, I click my garage door open, the metal rises up, disappearing into the wall. I slip into the cement womb of the building, enter my car slot, get out, press a button. The elevator doors slip open soundlessly, then close. A metal box lifts me up, but it's so smooth I can hardly feel it. It opens again and lets me out. I wish something would go wrong. I wish things weren't so perfect. My mouth is sticky from not talking, my face sticky with silent tears. I am home. I crawl into bed and try to remember the dirty smells of Kitoro, the dark swirling mud after an hour of rain like vengeance, hard fast rain that means it. The rotting fruit and swarming flies of Nakasero market; the unkempt, uncut

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grass that creeps, uncontained, uncontainable, disruptive, across any kind of man-made borders. I have been torn from natural hving chaos that wrapped itself strongly around our lives. I am alone and trapped in metal. I am lost.

Ill

My cousin Kema has left for Uganda. I live by myself now. She did a lot to help me settle in, got me my first job, and introduced me to her friends, who are all Africans. They live the Southern California suburban life while saving money to build houses back home, educate their kids, make money, live well. What's so wrong with that? They are very nice people, all shiny with cream and fatty food, and they welcome new Africans with open arms— those who are educated and ambitious, that is. In America, we are nothing but Africans: lumped together, generic, black. Our voices get whiny and nasal too, but we can't erase the African lilt. Our children are American, though: noisy, demanding, insolent, confident, and fat.

Every weekend there is a gathering at one house or another, and we talk about home. When we were there last, five years ago, ten, even twenty. We are going back for good, eventually, but not anytime soon, oh no, who wants to live with the insecurity, the rule of army men and guns, the magendo —black market—such a tough way of life. Here, we have grown soft and comfortable with steady salaries we can live on; why go back to desperately running around chasing deals, sweating in that dusty heat? Some-

one, another recent arrival (not me, I only observe, and smile if anyone happens to look my way), tries to protest. He says it's not like that anymore. That was in Amin's time, during the "economic war" in the seventies. We have been saved by Mzee Museveni. A political debate erupts, in which we compare the different short-lived regimes, the deadly musical-chair coups, rigged elections, and corruption scandals.

"Obote One wasn't so bad, and it could have been even better if he had been given a chance during his second regime."

"Obote Two? He was an alcoholic by then; he should never have come back!"

"No, moreover the Baganda hated him and they wanted a Muganda in power. Remember, 'twagala Lule / oba tufa, tufe!' " Laughter rings out, which helps defuse any rising anger.

"Daddy?" One of younger kids tugs at her father's sleeve. "What does that song mean?"

"See, Sharon? I wanted to teach you Luganda and you said, 'It's weiiirrd.' " He imitates her accent, then laughs with the others while hugging her to him. "We had a president called Lule for a few months, and after he was removed, the Baganda protested. They took to the streets singing and shouting, "We want Lule / if we are to die, we'll die!"

The little girl continues staring up at her father, still puzzled. "But whyyyyy, Daddy?" Back home, no child would have dared interrupt adult conversation.

"Listen, darling, I'll explain it all later, okay? It's a long story."

"Darling"! I am shocked. Since when did Ugandan fathers call their daughters "darling"?

The debate shifts to whether Asians, as we call Indians, should have been allowed to return to Uganda after all these years. Amin summarily expelled them in 'seventy-two. This is always a hot topic. "Let's be honest, Amin saved us from the Asians. You can call him a murderer, a cannibal—" Loud laughter. "—What not, but he did that one good thing." The group laughs again, some in assent, some in reftisal.

"But the Indians were Ugandans—"

"With British passports!" More laughter, grunts, and head-shaking.

"Right or wrong, we suffered for it. Look what happened to our economy—it collapsed completely!"

"That was because all the Europeans and so on pulled out, stopped aid, trade. What country can survive with no foreign trade, no investment?"

"Yes, yes, blame it on someone else. It's easier that way."

"But now they're back, these Bayindil'' another interjects.

"Ah, but now they've learnt. They are more humble, careful."

"What careful? Their money does the talking. See how they bribe the ministers!"

"Are the ministers forced to take the money? And what Ugandan businessman doesn't bribe?"

"Then the Bayindi are very Ugandan!"

On and on go these debates about what really matters to us. We escape our American lives on the fringe and take center stage again. At these moments we are so far away from America, we might as well be at Sophie's Bar and Bakery in Wandegeya, sit-

ting on wooden stools out in the open, eating roast meat and drinking Port Bell beer, swatting away the flies. Or maybe up on the Diplomat Hotel rooftop, washing away the day's sweat with sundowners. It feels that good.

"Daaaaad." The child's petulant cry swiftly brings us back. We are here in America, and we all need our reasons to stay, despite our vows not to die here, oh no! Alone in an apartment where your body may rot for days and no one will miss you? Here, where no one knows you even exist? Imagine ending life in a retirement home, where you have to pay someone to look after you, as if you have no children, no family? What a disgrace! We are going back home in two years; home is home. Five years maybe. No, for us, our kids have to get into college first, you know the schools at home. When I finish my house; when I've set up my business; when I get the UN job I've been promised. That's the only way to survive, you know, to get paid in dollars. If, when, if, when, but in the meantime . . . oh, here's the food, let's eat.

We rally around the barbecued chicken, limp salads, meat stew and rice, posho made with semolina flour. It's the same food every time; not quite home food, but close enough. It's better than sandwiches or macaroni or some other fake food, and so we eat. The talk subsides to contented murmurs and grunts of appreciation. Afterwards, the women clear up, bustling up and down, their big hips swaying heavily with each move, as purposeful and confident as the huge swathes of bright-colored kitenge wrapped around them. What a warming sight to see. I don't help

much; I prefer to watch. But the single men take note and cancel me off their lists; not to mention, my hips aren't big enough.

My cousin, trying to help, makes a point of introducing me to the single men. Most look more polished and confident than they would have back home. Their dark coffee skin glows with health, their hair is neatly cut in a short, square "fade," they have on the right casual, loose-fitting jeans, sandals, and brightly patterned African shirt, and are armed with a degree, of course. I see fierce ambition rising like two horns from the top of their painfully neat haircuts. Their agenda for success is not complete without a wife. She had better be a good, no, above-average woman.

Kema pulls me over and warmly tells Bosco, Katende, or Wil-berforce, "This is Christine, my cousin, she's just arrived."

"Oooh, you're welcome." A moist, limp handshake, a mere slipping in and out.

Him: "Christine who?"

Me: "Mugisha."

"Is it the Mugisha who was minister in Obote Two?"

"No."

"Ohh . . . which one?"

"We aren't known." Why am I being so rude? His smile stiffens, but he tries again.

"Where are you from?"

"Entebbe."

"Mugisha? Entebbe . . . ?"

"We're from Ankole." I should say I am Rwandese or from the north, Madi, and watch him disappear like the wind.

"Oh, I see ... so you must know the Mutembes, don't you? The ones of Mutembe Plastics?"

"No."

Mr. EHgible Social Snob is fed up. His eyes rove around the room, he's thinking, "Next!" Luckily my cousin, who is as smooth as butter, eases him away. I should tell the next one point-blank: "I'm a nobody." Being just me, an individual, is meaningless, which may be what I am escaping from. And yet, who, what am I separate from my sisters, my extended family, the schools I've been to: Gayaza, Makerere; my religion, my clan, my tribe? That's what I don't know.

But at least I can drink and dance. I'm not used to the strange upside-down effect of these afternoon rather than night parties, with the sun and heat still shimmering outside. But what else do you do after eating, after covering all the usual topics of conversation, now that a few beers or whiskies are swimming in your blood? You dance. The music is turned up, but it doesn't seem to bother the kids, now sprawled out over the carpet and seats half asleep, exhausted by the attention and excitement and too much food.

The fast, syncopated, guitar-energized Congolese music is another way to go back home. It's a relief from battling the alien world that envelops us the minute we step outside our doors. We cluster together and dance to break away from the self or non-self we have to be at work, among foreigners, in the white world (even though there are blacks there). It's a difficult act, a tiring one. So why not let the wails of lingala, well-known oldies played again and again—Franco, Papa Wemba, Kanda Bongoman—

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why not let them take us back to that safe, known place? Sure, we left it willingly, and it wasn't heaven. Now it seems like it was.

We know the dhombolo, we love doing it together, churning our waists and hips, arms flung up in the air as if this will save us. But I tire soon. Some of us {''Oba, who do they think they are?" I imagine the others thinking) danced more to zungu music than Congolese hits back home. Black American hits actually, not wh\tc-zungu\ Michael Jackson, Kool and the Gang, the Commodores. To be honest, my nostalgia is largely borrowed; that's why it doesn't last that long. Their memories are not mine. Perhaps I haven't been here long enough to feel African. I admit, I am not entirely comfortable with the idea that these Ugandans, and Africans in general, are more me than anyone else. I didn't even know these people here when we were back home. How can I, in fact, why should I feel one with them, or with any African, here?

After a month of weekends at these afternoon parties, I am sick of this game of going back home. I have just arrived; I want to be here, in Los Angeles, in America, whatever this means. To try and crack this new code if I can. I left home for a reason. I will try and find out what that reason is.

IV

I must get out of my apartment on Saturday. I must. I dare myself to go alone to a club in Pasadena to listen to a live band called Sweet Poison. It plays punk music, whatever that is. The club is

five blocks from my home, so why not? It is dark and warm inside, full of people. Many different random objects are hanging from the red walls: a dolphin, T-shirts, guitars, old photographs, license plates, wheels. One would think a hurricane blew through and stuck objects haphazardly, precariously up on the wall.

The band is all white, with long shaggy hair. They aren't dressed up at all, but rather wear T-shirts and baggy pants in ugly gray and brown colors, as do most of the crowd around me. Even the girls. They all must have just crawled out of bed and walked in. I, of course, am decked out in tight green velvet trousers and a frilly white blouse. I feel like a fool, even though it's now so normal for me to be in the wrong place and to look wrong. What does it matter anyway? There is no chance on earth anyone I know will see me. No one here really looks at me; avoiding strangers' eyes seems to be the polite white way. It makes me feel like I don't exist.

The band is much too noisy, but I stay anyway. I lean on the wall and watch the band scream and gesture wildly, while the crowd stands stock still, beers in hand, or hands in pockets, and simply watches. There's no obvious reaction, no dancing. One or two guys nod to the music, their hair jerking back and forth as if they're receiving electric shocks. That's it. Are they having fun? My beer heightens the absurdity of it all, and I giggle, covering my mouth with my hand. I could very well be on Mars. All the same, I'm out by myself, and so far I'm okay. I haven't been raped or anything; I'm not even noticed! I go home, take off my smoke-filled new clothes, and decide to be an amateur anthropologist, if nothing else.

133 *

The next time I'm back, the bar is just as crowded with hairy people. One of them, I can't tell if he is a man or a boy, is squashed next to me along the wall. He is very tall, thin, and loopy. I imagine his bones would make useful tools or musical instruments. His long hair, in disarray, hides his face. Its many sandy colors make him look like a friendly shaggy dog. I wonder if the hair is heavy. Should I ask? He looks ungainfuUy employed, as if he simply obeys the wind. He wouldn't try too hard at anything, except maybe at telling a good joke or choosing a good beer, or jerking off. I've traveled halfway across the world on my own; surely I can talk to a stranger. The loud racket from the stage helps silence my mother's shocked reply, and my drink urges me on. I sway slowly from side to side. The more I listen to this hectic noise called music, the better it gets. Its clangy, chaotic brash-ness is refreshing somehow. I'm wearing jeans this time, but they're still too new, a bright blue, and I cannot bring myself to go out in a T-shirt. It's okay, Christine, it's okay.

Shaggy-Hair's elbow knocks my shoulder. I turn, and he says, "Excuse me."

"What.^"

He leans down like a swinging vine and shouts in my ear, "Excuse me, I said."

I'm not sure which "excuse me" he means. "Yes?" I shout back, my head turned up to him. We're both still swaying.

"I knocked your shoulder. Accidentally." He does it again to show me.

"Oow!"

"Sorry." His bushy eyebrows are busy working across his face.

"You did it again."

"I know. I said sorry!"

By this time I'm giggling. "You're not sorry, you did it on purpose."

"Yes, I mean no, not the first time. I've got long arms, see?" and he spreads them out on both sides. They stretch across my face, smelling faintly of soap and smoke. There is a visible lack of muscle. Maybe he reads books.

"Where are you from anyway? You have an accent."

An accent always helps; it's an obvious opening line. I shouldn't complain. "So do you."

"What?" he leans further down. His falling yellow hair tickles my cheeks.

"Africa." I no longer say Uganda; I'm not paid to give geography lessons.

"Cool."

"It's quite hot, actually."

He laughs. "I meant, cooool,' you know," and gestures, spreading long bony fingers. He apparently likes to talk. I hope he doesn't ask what I'm doing in America, as everyone does. Can't I just be here? Be as purposeless as anyone else? Luckily, he prefers to talk about the band, so I just listen and enjoy watching his spider-busy fingers and his eyebrows wriggling like furry caterpillars up and down his face. I nod and smile and drink more beer. This is progressive music, he tells me. I say it doesn't sound like progress, and that gets him going, giving me a brief history of rock and roll. The band stops, the room clears, and we move to the bar for more drinks.

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Robert, or Raab, as he calls himself, has traveled to Jamaica. That's the closest he has been to Africa, he says. I tell him I feel like I'm on Mars here. He says, yes, Los Angeles is weird, isn't it? He's from Philadelphia. I don't think we're talking about the same thing: East Coast, West Coast, it's all the same to me. His face is so strange, maybe I am on Mars and he is the alien. I giggle. The flirting moves into high gear. Raab calls me brave for leaving home alone, coming to a bar by myself, and I want to believe him. I tell him he must really be so strong, with all that hair, like Samson. He hasn't read the Bible. We continue talking, each of us about different things; two separate, parallel conversations, but we're trying, we're willing.

Raab says he likes my large lips, and instead of replying, "Everyone I know has 'large' lips," I say, "You can have them," and we kiss. It's even easier, smoother, after that. Really, I think, as we explore each other's face, men and women don't have to talk; we should just rub faces, eyebrows, noses. Sniff each other like dogs. We do, and end up in his bed (an especially long one), panting and entangled. His long, hairy legs and arms are everywhere, under and over me; it's like I am making love with an octopus. A warm, furry, active, attentive octopus. I remember an old TV cartoon of a one-octopus band: it played all the instruments, its tentacles wriggling gracefully everywhere. I tell him. He laughs and winds tight around me. I bite his large nose gently, smooth his eyebrows, hold on to his long abdomen. Here I am, mind and body together, in this boy's bed, in Los Angeles. This is new. Let me turn away from the past. I'm so tired of it.

Raab is friendly in the morning, as if it's perfectly normal to

wake up with a stranger, an African woman who is hungover and silent, in your bed. He offers me breakfast, but I don't want to eat anything—maybe some coffee. He gives me aspirin and juice and is casual and sweet. We exchange phone numbers, and then he drives me home in an old Volvo his parents gave him. "Take care," he says, kissing my cheek. "Of what?" I ask. He laughs, and waves his large hairy hand.

That week, I feel loose and happy, and it shows, because I actually laugh at work, a real laugh. The distance between the others and me seems less, somehow. They too sense a breaking down, I guess. Another temp, Ta-Mara, invites me to lunch. I find I am less on edge about the usual "Africa" questions. Sex heals some wounds, apparently. Ta-Maras from Washington, D.C., and has just finished college. She's going on to grad school, maybe. That's what her parents want. She says she is postponing real life, here in Los Angeles. I tell her I left home to escape real life. We laugh. "Well, you came to the right place: La-La Land," she says. We all talk about Los Angeles as if we aren't really here; as if it lacks physical solidity. The desert was dreamt away, and now here we are, not grounded. Floating.

Venturing farther is easier now. I learn about poetry readings in the LA. Weekly and I wonder what that's all about. They are held at a coffee shop in Old Town, Pasadena, which also is close to my apartment, so with my newfound faith, I go one Wednesday night afi:er working out at the gym. I have joined the army of those who insist we can and will reshape our bodies, who cares

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Lost in Los Angeles

what God intended? Aerobics is fun, it's dancing really, the music is funky and fast, and small talk isn't too hard with naked women strolling casually around in the bathroom, their breasts drooping nonchalantly.

The energy after exercise makes me feel like a conqueror as I drive to L.A. Cafe. It's a narrow, drab, bare-brick room lined with old couches. A few metal tables and chairs in the center face a small podium. Near the entrance is a plastic counter sticky with spilt tea. A young girl who looks like a starvation victim, with sharp white sticks for arms and black shadows under her bulging eyes, stands behind it. She wears a dog collar and stares at me silently, intensely. I timidly ask for tea. She asks what type, waving her arm behind her to the rows and rows of tea jars. I cannot read the labels so I say, any. She sighs heavily, then with effort asks, regular or herbal?

Regular meaning what? "Um, maybe, herbal."

She rolls her dark, almost glittering eyes. "Chamomile, apple, orange, mint, ginseng, rose petals ..." I can see this is excruciating torture for her.

"Chamomile, please."

"Sugar or honey?" she asks sternly. I am afraid of giving the wrong answer, so I mumble something. She bangs down the honey jar, which is shaped like a little bear, in front of me, saying, with a voice as brittle as her twenty metal rings, "There. Honey's good for you." I dare not resist. "You must be new here," she barks. "The muse welcomes you." But why is the muse so angry?

She turns out to be the star poet, with a tragic four-line poem about her parents.

Love!

Mummy and Daddy make loud noises.

Hate!

My dog and I leave home.

After each Hne she pauses dramatically and stares us down. We shiver. She starts with a low rumble, screeches out the next line fast, spits out the third, and then, now that we are all hanging by a thin wire, whispers the last line. Silence.

We don't know what to do for a long moment; is she done? But when she looks at us expectantly, the anguish gone from her face, and breaks into a smile, we clap enthusiastically, relieved. She was accusing her parents^ not us! The star bows deeply, her pale, hollow face as serious and stern as a nun's, then she goes back behind the counter. I don't dare get any more tea.

I stay longer, though, because the room is shabby, smoky, and dim, a comfortable hiding place to watch others, and to dream myself onto the stage. There are the same kinds of shaggy-haired young people here as the ones at the club, but they are dressed more colorfully and crazily, all in black with chains, hooks, and rings, or in long flowery skirts and what I come to learn are "ethnic" print blouses. They wear heavy black boots or ragged sandals, or go barefoot. No one looks too clean, except me, of course. What do my clothes, my face say? That I am a temp working for

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ARCO, or an African, or an immigrant, an alien, or simply black? All and none of the above. Then how should I say, I am me?

But I do like these people, this cult of carelessness, because there is no way they would know anything about me, or would be able to judge me, even if they cared to. And I can never be who they are, so I don't even have to try. Nor do I want to be; there is nothing I need to be, here. Being lost is freeing.

The next Wednesday at the cafe, two girls come up to my table and ask if it's free. I nod, not wanting my accent to give me away, to lead to questions. I shrink into myself a little, but one of them insists on talking to me. Soon enough, she asks where I am from. "Africa" almost sends her into raptures. She is Native American, she says. Her friend, Debbie, grunts. She is fat, with bulging cheeks and narrow, squashed-in eyes. She smells of something, old food perhaps, I can't tell. The talkative one is called Light Feather, and she is suitably small, thin, and pale. One of her eyes is unfocused, the cornea moves around unpredictably. Feather tells me everything about herself, her wild eye making the story stranger than it is. She was born in Nebraska, but she and her brother ran away to California to escape her parents, who belonged to a religious cult. I look at Debbie for confirmation. She shakes her head and turns the edges of her thin lips down. Why is this stranger telling me lies? Why is she even talking to me? I thought we were here for the poetry.

Light Feather can't stop talking; no wonder she has such a silent friend. She says too many people think she's white so she has to dye her blond hair brown. Debbie grunts. Light Feather

asks where I live, how I can afford to Hve in Pasadena, a new immigrant Uke me. She doesn't wait for my answers, but keeps saying she Ukes how I talk.

"Your voice is like a song, do you know that? I'm sure you sing well, what black doesn't? Just like us Indians, you people are favored by the gods. That's why indigenous people suffer." Debbie grunts again, but remains expressionless. She seems to be half asleep, and wheezes like a steam engine.

To stop Feather's stream of words, I ask, "Did you grow up on a reservation?"

This time Debbie interjects flatly, "She's not Indian."

I look at Feather. She flips back her long brown hair impatiently, and raises her high voice. "People are in denial here in America, you'll learn, you'll see. I accept my past; I know I'm Native." Debbie shrugs, rolls the little there is of her eyes, and turns away. She isn't bothered enough to argue.

I say I'm leaving, but Feather insists I listen to her poems first. On stage, her thin voice strains even higher. She recites a poem about the long, strong heritage of her people. The crowd is kind; we clap like we do for everyone else, and she blushes triumphantly. Her second poem has many animals in it, including a clever coyote, a strong eagle, a spirit bear. She does a little jig, making a circle, and ends with a loud whoop. The clapping is less enthusiastic. I feel pity for her, and clap longer than I mean to.

Back at the table, Feather, flushed from dancing, tells me I must write an African poem. Americans have no clue about Africa and native people in general, she says. It's our duty to set

them straight. What do I know about Africans, I only became one after I left, I think but don't say. I am a Munyakore, but who here knows what that is, or cares? Feather preaches on in the dim light, long after the poetry reading is over. The constant refrain is her people, our people, native people, evil white people. Her weak eye seems to accuse me too, and yet I thought we were on the same side! Her good eye is kind, which is even more disorienting; two contradictory expressions on the same face. Everything Feather says is mingled with Debbie's smell and heavy passivity; she sits there like a log, like a big fat old dog. What is she thinking? I interrupt Feather abruptly, and, as if coming up for fresh air, ask Debbie if she writes poetry too. She shrugs and looks away. Thankftilly, this silences Feather for a second, and I grab the chance to quickly say bye. Promising to come back, I escape.

Strange, strange, strange, is all that's passing through my head on the way home and as I lie in bed trying to sleep. Remembering the star waitress, whose latest poem was about her menstrual blood, as red as a communist, I giggle and giggle until I'm laughing hysterically, alone in the dark. Thinking of Feather and Debbie slowly sobers me up. There are so many of us who are lost, so many.

That whole week I am unsettled inside. All my ways of thinking are rearranging themselves in my head. What other people think about me recedes, as I grasp for . . . for what? I decide to write a poem, to clarify things, to try, anyway. Not about home, nor Raab, whom I saw again once, but we had nothing more to

say to each other. No. Maybe something about the adventure of being lost and what I can find.

The next Wednesday I am at the cafe early. I sign up to read my poem before I can change my mind. My palms are already sticky with sweat. On the small stage the stark light is terrifying. My piece of paper trembles to match my voice, but I read on, reminding myself: no one knows me here, no one real will ever know.

have body, will travel through the maze of my unbelief to the stone wall of my yearning for more.

The applause could have been a little more lively, I think. I'm not even sure they heard what I said. My famous accent. It is a desperate poem, but that's okay, I have done it. Light Feather likes it, and when I sit back down, she strokes my back reassuringly, smiling into my face. I've learned to sit on her "good" side. She says, "Soon, you'll write about your people; the ancestors will speak through you. Your people need a voice, you know." I'm not so sure they don't have one, but in my euphoric state I agree. Later, we all go to smelly Debbie's grandmother's house, where she lives, also in Pasadena. We eat Big Macs, and then crunch granola and drink ghastly red wine.

We keep meeting on Wednesdays at the cafe, and then on other days too. Light Feather has a softness, an innocent vulner-

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ability I like to be around. She really believes I'm like her. I can imagine what Africans here would say if they were to meet us together: "Surely, Christine, if you want white friends, can't you pick better ones?" That's part of her attraction. Also, she shows me I can be anything I want.

Feather walks people's dogs for a living; she says they speak to her. She lives in one small room and a tiny yard, what at home we would call a boys' quarter. She has five or six cats, I can't tell, they completely fill her wreck of a room. The cats are fiarry and huge, and slink or spread all over us like physical music. Their fur floats in streams of sunlight. We hike up the Altadena hills often, where we drink cheap wine, write and read poems, and shout them out to the smog of Los Angeles. Feather teaches me Pueblo chants and dances. "This is my people's land, you know," she says. "All this," sweeping her arms wide, around.

"Mine too," I say. What the hell.

Vtlt

Questions of Home

Christine feared the plane was about to land in Lake Victoria but had just missed it by one quick swoop to the left. Looking down at Uganda's international airport, she could tell the lake was below because there were no lights at all, just a blank indigo mass. Entebbe International Airport shone dimly in one tiny area. The town's lights were scattered and weak; Entebbe was asleep. How different it was from the spread of brilliant lights that was Washington, where the night was never dark but rather a hazy yellow. Bright orbs illuminated the memorials and monuments, giving passengers a film version of the city as the plane circled up and away. Christine was glad to leave Washington, to keep only a few choice images of it in her mind. She was home for good.

Back on earth, the passengers clapped, many of them glad to be coming home. Christine clapped with them. There was a feeling of camaraderie after sitting so close together for fifteen hours, through all the takeoffs and landings of the Ethiopian Airlines

plane in New York, Rome, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, and finally Entebbe. The passengers had shared the cramped, worn seats, the safety instructions repeated each time in English, French, and Amharic, the tiny toilets and scary blue water, the cramps, indigestion, cold, dry, stale air, and dull Muzak. Even the pretty Ethiopian air hostesses became as familiar as sisters or maids. The fifteen hours merged into one endless drone of a moment. Arriving was such a relief, whatever the destination. For Christine, it was home again, after eight years.

On the ground, the passengers were asked to stay put for a while. No explanation was given, while the crew, looking flustered, talked to one another in Amharic. Why had the plane stopped so far from the main airport building, and why weren't they let out? It wasn't like there was an air traffic jam here. After about half an hour it was explained: the plane was stuck in the mud. It was the rainy season, and even after repeated clearings, the runway was still awash with mud. Christine couldn't stop herself smiling at the news, her amusement compounded by the groans of frustration around her. How perfectly third world, she thought. It was almost too good to be true. This was the kind of thing she vehemently denied happening when talking to her non-African friends. The typical stereotypes of "Africa" filled her with self-righteous anger. Well, here she was, then, about to wrangle with the reality itself

The crew finally opened the plane doors, letting in the dark, warm lake breeze. At last, the cabin was no longer a cramped prison. The fish smell and the heat hit Christine as she stepped off the air-conditioned plane and walked to a bus that was to

drive them to the airport building. They would have to wait some more, they were told. She had better get used to this, Christine thought. There would be a lot of waiting here, after all.

A surprise awaited Christine: the airport, which in her memory was a huge modern building of glass and large square columns of imposing cement, now looked more like an abandoned barn than anything else. Was she only going to experience expatriate cliches? This was home; she wasn't here to make comparisons at every turn. All she wanted was for her memories to become solid again, to become real physical things.

As Christine waited for her family, her body tightened with excitement and apprehension. Eight years away. Eight whole years. Christine's mother and sister Patti, who still lived in Entebbe, were at the airport to meet her. Her mother seemed to have shrunk. Her aunts had always said Christine looked like her mother. For the first time, she saw that they were right. She and Maama had the same full dark lips, a gap in the front teeth, and a long forehead. Maama was short, plump, and motherly. Christine was short too but wire thin. So was Patti. They liked to say their father gave them pygmy genes from way back when, since his ancestors had crossed over from Congo. Oh, the sweetness of familiar faces, bodies, gestures.

Christine leaned over for a hug, but Maama shyly extended her hand. How embarrassing. Exuberant Maama, whose every sentence ended with an exclamation mark, shy? They shook hands. Christine remembered that her family did not hug, as though that was too expressive. Oh, why couldn't she stop watching and simply, unself-consciously walk into her old life,

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Questions of Home

become herself again? They both mentally circled each other as they gave the expected oh-look-at-you exclamations and long Runyankore greeting.

Patti stood back, smiling broadly, waiting for her turn. The sisters greeted each other in Runyankore too, but jokingly. It was their language, but they didn't usually use it. Patti then switched to Luganda, the language of central Uganda, including Entebbe, where they had grown up. Kulika, bamhil Finally, Patti said in English, their Ugandan version of it, "How's everything?"

Christine's mind was slower than the plane journey that had carried her body home. It would take her awhile to catch up with what her eyes saw, ears heard, and skin felt. Here was Maama, right here, no longer just in Christine's mind, a living memory, but resurrected into warm flesh. Christine had dwelt on certain physical details all these years, such as Maama's brown toes with curved pink and white nails. She had thought Maama's warm smell was hers alone, but then had caught whiffs of it on the Metro in D.C., in class, from one or two women she had passed on the sidewalk. Christine had turned around quickly in surprise, not even fully conscious that she was looking for someone thousands of miles away. Later, when she caught that sweet, slightly tangy scent again, it reminded her of those first jolts of recognition, rather than of Maama herself Now, here they were, in the same room.

Was Christine ready? She felt like a cardboard copy of herself Strangely enough, this was exactly how, in certain flash moments of awareness, she had felt in America. Like a Ugandan doll. An

actress dressed up for the part. This fakeness soon became normal. Thank God all that was now over.

Patti was all practical help, showing Christine where to go, collecting her three matching sets of green suitcases. The rest of her belongings were coming by cargo. Since Christine was home for good, she had brought as much as she could, including all she thought she couldn't get in Uganda. "All these suitcases, ban-nange\ As if you didn't live here before with what we have," her sister gently scoffed.

Maama took Christine's side. "Why can't she have the extras, for a while at least, until she gets used?"

"Yes," answered Patti. "Until she 'settles down.' Emphasis on the 'down.' When your American shoes have no soles left and your American suits are tattered." She laughed.

Christine knew she didn't really need all this stuff, but still had bought lots of organic decaffeinated coffee, apricot and peach bubble bath, pink women's razors with aloe and vitamin E, and enough lubricated, ultra-sensitive, extra-strong, non-expiring latex condoms to last anywhere from two to six years, depending on male availability. That was wishful thinking, of course, but she had bought them anyway. She smiled now as she remembered the drugstore clerk in D.C. counting the packets, her ^y^s bulging with shock. For a school, Christine had murmured. Luckily, she was too dark to blush.

Outside the airport building, the warm indigo air was a light embrace. "How dark the sky is!" Christine leaned back to take it all in. The sky was spread open like an endless scroll, the stars

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mysterious yet meaningful writing. "Just look at all those stars! You can actually see the stars!"

Maama and Patti looked at each other and laughed. ''AhaUy nga you're romantic these days," Patti said.

But Christine couldn't help herself. "And that. . . oh, I remember that perfumy smell. . . what is that?"

"Maybe those flowers over there, the pale blue ones, lilacs?" Patti pointed to a large bush whose delicate flowers glowed faintly in the dark. Their sweet smell wafted by again with a change of wind.

"I hadn't even noticed," Maama said. "Yes, they do smell nice."

"Nice? Not niceT Some other new ^oidi, Christine thought to herself

The road from the airport had only one army checkpoint, which was quick and businesslike. Patti said there were now almost no demands for chai, no threats to dodge by secretly slipping money into soldiers' fists. The roadblocks weren't even permanent like they used to be. Christine could not imagine not being scared. No starving-thin, red-eyed, angry-looking soldiers with harsh voices? Army men who never smiled? No more repetitive, insistent interrogations meant to intimidate rather than to get information?

Christine held her breath out of old habit, but was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of the soldiers, the casual way they swung their guns. They greeted Maama respectfully, then joked with her. The soldiers actually told them they were checking for drugs or other smuggled goods, and apologized for the incon-

The road from the airport passed along the lakeshore for about a mile. The air was cool and fresh across her face as she looked out at the dark expanse of Lake Victoria. The car did not drown out the roar of the waves completely. How calming. Physical things remained the same, or at least it seemed so. The lake was Entebbe, its waves would always slap against its shores, whether she could hear them or not. Here she was, driving home with her mother and her sister. Christine sighed deeply, enjoying the silence. She was home.

Christine planned to live with her mother for a few months while settling in. She had left Uganda after graduating from college and working for three months. But she could not turn down the approval of her application for an American visa, even though she had a good government job. Her plan was to do a masters in public administration then come back, but she had stayed on and on in Washington, D.C. Her mother, especially, had not been happy with her "delay," as Christine called it. She wouldn't admit that America had begun to feel like home, albeit a strange one. She could not dare say she might want to stay in the States for good. African immigrants didn't do this. Home was home. She didn't even admit to herself that she might remain in the U.S., as though this was a betrayal of some kind. It was easier to postpone the decision.

What changed? The painful end of yet another affair and President Munino's call in one emotional month. One year ago, the Ugandan president had visited the States and, among other

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official meetings, gave a wonderful, rousing speech to the Ugandans in America Association meeting in Washington. Munino pleaded with all the "brain drain" Ugandans to go back home and help rebuild the country. They were the cream of the crop, he said; they were desperately needed. After all, he argued, most of them had been educated in government schools, and had got a free university education at Makerere. Surely going back to rebuild Uganda, now that he had established security and the rule of law, was the very least they could do. Why stay in America cleaning toilets, the president admonished. Why live as second-class non-citizens, unwelcome aliens facing racial discrimination and snow? Laughter released the tension built up by the accusations wrapped in praise. Their parents and the new generation needed them, Munino urged, wagging his finger sternly. Uganda was theirs!

Tears welled up in Christine's eyes as they all stood up and gave the president rousing applause. The speech made Christine feel so good, so necessary, heroic even. Before this, she had scorned any kind of nationalistic fervor; if she felt any allegiance at all, it was to her ethnic group, the Banyankore. That was who she was. Uganda was a made-up idea forcing itself, rather unsuccessfiiUy so far, into a country. But listening to the president's speech as a foreigner in America had turned her religiously into a Ugandan.

Christine applied for an administrative position with the Uganda Human Rights Commission, under the Ministry of Justice. She asked the Commission Director to support her application for grants to help her move back. He did, and she was awarded a grant from the Ford Foundation for her salary, hous-

ing, health, and other costs for two years under a managerial skills program. Christine did not ask herself if she would have returned home without this money. She had every right to it, she reasoned, and would live cheaply in Uganda—well, relatively cheaply. The grant would have gone, if not to her, to some expatriate who most likely would live like a king compared to ordinary Ugandans. In any case, the decision was made, and here she was.

A month later, Christine started work. She took a minibus, what everyone called a matatu, from Entebbe to Kampala. The early morning ride on her first day, through fresh new air, thrilled her. Her fellow travelers were shiny with Vaseline and hair oil. Their shoes were so highly polished you'd think they would never be defeated by the dust. The women wore dresses of a metallic sheen that apparently were still in fashion after almost a decade. The matatus were no longer squashed to the breaking point with passengers like they used to be. Now they sat only three to a row, with enough maneuvering space. Back then, the whole length of their bodies slid up against total strangers as they bumped and shook their way to the capital. This intimacy, which had been natural to Christine, was something she now dreaded. She had learned in America to cringe at the touch of strangers. Now that more matatus meant more space for everyone, the ride back home would at least be bearable, when she would be sweaty, tired, and longing for privacy.

The taxi ride gave Christine half an hour to look ahead at the

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day calmly, make plans, and think nice litde expectant thoughts. She would not worry. Her new boss, Mr. Musozi, had been very helpful, if rather scatterbrained, by phone and fax. She was sure she would do a good job. By the time the matatu got to Kampala, the sun was completely awake and flexing its muscles. All the dew on spiderwebs and grass along the road had disappeared.

At the ministry building, a rusty brown gate was wide open next to a wooden sentry box large enough for only one person, marked SECURICO. It was empty. That perhaps was a good sign. In the parking lot, there were only two cars, huge SUV Pajeros with government license plates. The office building was beautiful: old and broad, with thick cement walls, and a veranda all around divided by tall, solid columns. It was the kind built in the colonial days, when the British could get all the materials and land they demanded, once they had ordered the local people to move away. There were huge windows all along the walls of the wide one-level building to let in cooling air. The walls were painted gray up to about hip level and white above. Or what was once white, Christine noted. It looked like the government was saving on painting expenses.

Christine walked around the building looking for an entrance. She saw a doorway at one corner. In she went and immediately found herself outside again in a courtyard: a large square plot of grass with small flowers, sunlight, and more office windows and doors facing onto it. How nice. Her workmate in D.C., Tamika, in their windowless office on the eighth floor of a building in the gray downtown, would envy her now. Christine peered into a window. Because of the blinding sunlight, she could only make

out space, lots of it, and large, heavy-looking wooden furniture. What should she do? Ah, here. Was this the reception area? It was a corner room with a round wooden counter from wall to wall. A young woman, pregnant, or perhaps merely fat and ripe-looking, sat behind the counter. Her shiny red dress was stretched tight across her breasts and stomach. She was bent over a green piece of cloth she was embroidering. Christine recognized that particular harsh green Nytil Jinja cloth that was used to make chairbacks in many of the poorer homes. After many washings, by hand of course, the rough cotton became beautifully soft and faded into a pale guava-leaf green.

Christine stood there for a moment. The receptionist did not look up. Christine said, "Good morning." No reaction. She cleared her throat and raised her voice. "Good morning."

The receptionist looked up startled, then frowned. She turned back to finish a stitch and asked without looking up, "Can I help you?"

"I'd like to see Mr. Musozi."

The receptionist gave Christine a look that seemed to say, don't you know anything? "Mr. Musozi?" she asked.

Didn't she know who he was, for God's sake? "Yes, the Director of—"

"I know that. I work here." A pause. Two more stitches.

What to do? Should she have addressed the receptionist as "Auntie" like the market women did? "Well, can you direct me to his office?"

"Does he know you were coming?"

"Yes." Christine felt pricks of annoyance. But the less said, the

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better. Back in the States, she had got used to nonsensical roadblocks like this set up by receptionists, clerks, police, and salespeople who assumed that she didn't know what she wanted, who she was asking for, where she was or was supposed to be, and, of course, that she couldn't read a map. Not to mention those who couldn't or wouldn't understand her accent. So Christine had spoken slowly and loudly, but speaking more clearly, to her, meant hitting the consonants harder, which actually was less American and therefore less clear to Americans. After about two years she learned to slur a little, and then did so unconsciously after that. Now back here, at the airport, for example, she had slipped into her American accent, then stopped talking abruptly, mid-sentence, feeling foolish. Maama and Patti laughed, but the baggage clerk gave her a disparaging look, as if to say, you poor lost y^2i\\r\2i-hc-mzungu.

Anyway, who was this fat receptionist to interrogate her? Christine had liked her womanly pregnant good looks, but now was taken aback; she was so feminine and yet so hostile. Moreover to a "sister," as was said back in the States, except that here the two of them were not sisters since everyone was black.

Finally, the receptionist said, "Mr. Musozi went to bury in the village. I don't think he will be here today." She seemed to smile maliciously, triumphantly at Christine.

Well, Christine hadn't been a "sistah" for nothing. "Miss, you think, or don't you know? Would it be too much to ask you to find out?" She put as much sarcasm as she could in her voice, and gestured toward a huge dusty black phone sitting on the

counter like a gigantic dead beetle. It looked like a remnant from the colonial days that hadn't been used or dusted since then.

The receptionist ignored the phone. "Did he know his relative would die?"

"Don't ask me! Look, this shouldn't be so difficult—"

"Even if he was coming today, he wouldn't be here at this time. It's only nine o'clock. First, he has to take his children to school and his wife to work."

"Listen." Christine put both her hands on the counter firmly. "I am the new Executive Assistant to the Director of the Human Rights Commission. Mr. Musozi specifically asked me to come in today." She took a deep breath and then continued slowly, "Now, is there someone who can direct me to my office? Besides you, of course." Christine stepped back and waited.

Incredibly, the receptionist broke into a huge smile, put her sewing to the side, and stood up, straightening her tight dress over her bulging breasts and belly. "Eeeeh, why didn't you tell me? Christine Mugisha, yes? You are very, very welcome. My name is Peninah. Oo-oh, you are the lady Mr. Musozi has been praising. Okaaay. Bambi, how are you?" She held out both hands warmly, and Christine, confused, placed both of hers in them. The receptionist laughed, showing two neat rows of tiny white teeth and prominent purple-pink gums.

"I'm fine, thanks," Christine answered, not smiling. She took back her hands and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"So, how was America?" Peninah asked enthusiastically, as if they were long-lost friends. "My uncle's wife, the second one,

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when he died, she went there with his two children. Stole them, I would say. It's been ten years now, can you imagine? And, you know, she had said she would help me go there to study catering, but have I heard anything?"

"Oh," Christine said and nodded. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. She deliberately looked at her watch. It was already after nine.

^'Bambi, you got tired of the bazungu?. Or weren't the dollars enough?" Peninah laughed at her own joke, while Christine watched her shaking breasts. The girl covered her mouth with fat brown fingers, each with startling white half-moon tips. She was beautifiil, Christine admitted to herself grudgingly. She had large eyes with heavy "bedroom" eyelids, but almost no eyelashes or eyebrows. Pregnancy gave women such lush skin, as though they were now really women. She, Christine, had a stick figure with no hips or breasts to speak of, which had been more than okay in the States. But here, as her mother had reminded her already, as she piled more matooke onto her plate, it was not appreciated. People thought thin people had problems; one had best keep away, Maama said. Especially now with AIDS, akawuka —the little worm.

Peninah pulled up the counter opening and came out from behind it. "I will take you to Mr. Oduro. He works with Mr. Musozi on the Commission. Oh, there he is. Georgi!" she shouted at a tall, thin, very black man walking rapidly down the corridor. He stopped, turned, and stood stock still, looking down, not at them, as he waited. Peninah continued, "He is always the first

I

one here. He eats and sleeps work." She shrugged her fat, soft-looking shoulders.

A real officer at last. Christine sighed with relief as they approached him. She reached out her hand. He shook it with a quick jerk, then dropped it without a smile, without any expression at all. He simply glanced at her then away, like a bird. "I'm Christine Mugisha, the new assis—"

"Yes. I know. Mr. Musozi had a death in the family. He will be here tomorrow. I'll show you your office. Thanks, Peninah." He turned like a stiff private and walked swiftly down the corridor. She followed at a trot as Peninah's languid laughter rose behind her. "Here. It leads into Mr. Musozi's office. He likes to talk when he works."

Mr. Oduro ushered her in, turned on his heel, and walked away. Just like that. The room was huge, with a bare table, chair, file cabinet, and bookshelf There was the same kind of old-fashioned phone that the receptionist had. She wanted to ask if it worked but dared not. Mr. Oduro came back in with a large pile of dusty files and plunked then on her desk. Christine sneezed.

"You're allergic? Use Panadol. Every day. I don't even wash my shirts. They just get dirty again."

She stared at him in horror, then noticed his tight smile and laughed in relief "Read these. Applications under the Human Rights Act. Mr. Musozi will explain. Ask Peninah for stationery. Call me Oduro." And he disappeared. Christine's eyes followed him. How odd, she thought. Well, he could make a joke, at least. Thank goodness Mr. Musozi had sounded congenial over the

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phone. And there was always Peninah for company. Oh, no! Christine smiled to herself.

She turned to the heap of files. The sun shone a big hot square of light right in the middle of her desk. Curtains, anyone? Hallo? But she didn't want to face Peninah again just yet. She should enjoy the sun after all those miserable winters dreaming about it. Dust danced in the light as Christine flicked through the files. She wanted to be ready and to impress Mr. Musozi tomorrow. There was nothing to distract her anyway; no e-mail or Internet. By the way, how on earth was she going to work without a computer? A sneeze punctuated her every thought. She should make a list of things she needed, including a writing pad and pen to make the list with!

Christine walked into Mr. Musozi's office to search for paper and pen. He had more ftirniture than she had, a worn carpet, more cabinets, and bookshelves overflowing with volumes of statutes, law journals, and more dusty files. His desk was strewn with paper that covered his computer, too. He had a picture of President Munino on the wall. A much younger, thinner Munino, just out of the "bush," when he had just taken power. The only other wall hanging was a government calendar with Munino's face again, more wealthy-looking now, less gaunt, more self-satisfied. Eight years later, eight years fatter, and he was still president. But he was better than anyone they'd had in the past: Idi Amin, Obote, and so on. A stable government and security in most of the country was a relief People could breathe again. Christine hoped Munino wouldn't get a heart attack and

die, what with all that weight. That would plunge Uganda back into chaos. Enough already.

Christine tore a piece of paper from a pad on Mr. Musozi's desk and found a pen underneath a pile of papers. Back in her office she wrote the list. She would give it to Peninah in the afternoon, not right now. No, not her again.

The sun was so brilliant the next morning, Christine wondered how she had woken up for eight years without it. She filled herself chock-full of antihistamines and coffee to ward off the accompanying sleepiness. Maama said her skirt was too short; she was taking too much medicine and too much coffee and she was going to be late. The traffic on the Entebbe-Kampala road was a mess these days. And by the way, did Christine have taxi fare? She should pack some lunch—

"Maama, stop! In case you've forgotten, I'm twenty-nine and have been living on my own—"

"I'm just warning you. Don't waste time, you better go now."

Christine sighed with exasperation and walked out. She would deal with Maama later. How on earth did Patti manage her?

Christine got to the office by eight-thirty. Oduro was already at his desk, and gave her a curt nod when she stopped by to say hallo. Feeling dismissed, she went back to her office. She was ready for Mr. Musozi. She had written down questions for him and organized the applications by date and category of request, valiantly ignoring the dust. She waited nervously, skimming

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through the file§ again. At about ten-thirty, she heard Peninah loudly welcome Mr. Musozi from across the courtyard. They talked for about twenty minutes. Christine checked her watch and wondered whether she should join them. Would that be rude or the polite thing to do? She hadn't worked long before she left Uganda, so was unsure about office etiquette here. Mr. Musozi had been nice on the phone, but still, he was the Director of the Human Rights Commission.

Mr. Musozi came in at last, bustling like a bumblebee. Christine was surprised to see that he was such a small man, but with a round ball of a belly sitting on his small frame. He looked pregnant. His gray suit was old, frayed, and out of shape, his glasses thick, old-fashioned large squares of brown plastic. If he didn't have a bald crown with short white fuzz around it, he could have been mistaken for a boy. A ripe and fertile schoolboy.

Christine nervously stood up to greet him. Mr. Musozi rushed over and grabbed her hand. "Hallo, hallo, hallo, welcome. Miss Mugisha, is it? Yes, yes, how are you? Good, good. I see you have settled in, straight to the paperwork, good, good."

He rushed to his office and sat down. His stream of words and energy swept though the air. "So, yes, yts, sorry about yesterday, had to go bury my senga, you know how people die. Every three months it seems I make the trip to Mubende, you have to, you know, or they will talk, and your wife will stop talking to you, and so on, and who will attend yours, you know? Yes, yes, our wonderful traditions, oh yes. Let's see, here we are, this is the Commission." He spread his short arms wide, showing her the two rooms. "The Uganda Human Rights Commission, set up by

an Act of Parliament. Ha! Not what you were expecting, no?" He laughed cheekily, as if he had played a clever trick on her. Christine sat down, stunned.

"Now, now, where are we? What do you need to know? Let me bring you up to date. Our problem is money. Not surprised, eh? No, no, me neither." As he talked, he stood up, walked around his desk, drew out of his trouser pocket a large, startlingly white handkerchief, cleaned his glasses, folded the hanky in half, wiped his face, walked back to his seat, sat down, got back up again. Christine just sat there, mentally openmouthed.

Mr. Musozi stopped when Oduro walked in and shook hands with him. "Sorry about the loss."

"Yes, yes, these things happen. My mother's younger sister, you know? Well, she's gone, she's gone. And how is Karamoja? How is the project going?"

"Slow. I'm still trying to get the funds from Accounts to travel there. I can't do anything until I have been to the area and talked to the chiefs themselves."

"Yes, yes, the fight with Accounts, those thieves. Always the first step. Can't they at least give you half? Let them steal the rest." They both gave a short laugh. Mr. Musozi turned to Christine. "I hope you took this course back in America, 'How to Fight for Your Money' It is required. Absolutely mandatory. You didn't? Well, that's the main thing we do here. Yes, yes." The two men laughed again. "Luckily you came with your own money. Very wise. Very wise indeed."

"Accounts won't like that," Oduro noted dryly, and they chuckled.

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Christine didn't think it was so funny. This was exactly the kind of thing that made the most well-planned projects fail, the lack of money to implement them. If the money was allotted for the project, how dare the Accounts Department not release it? All of it. Not to mention the wasted time and energy begging. Such major setbacks should be dealt with, not laughed at! She couldn't stop herself: "Sir, why hasn't the Accounts Department been held—"

"Oh, no, no, my dear, do not call me sir, no, no, no. Just Mu-sozi, okay?"

Before she could go on, an officer came in, then another and another, all to offer their condolences to Mr. Musozi. Christine went back to her desk after a few minutes, since it was clear his colleagues had settled down for a good talk. But she couldn't do very much before conferring with Mr. Musozi. The other officers passed back and forth by her desk, and her boss's high-pitched voice and squeal of laughter carried over to her room.

Was it the coffee that was making her tremble or was it frustration? Was she this nervous? Meanwhile, there was a party in full swing next door! Right away a major issue had cropped up: Accounts. How would she deal with that? Christine wanted to leave, to step out for some fresh air, but what would Musozi think? Should she tell him? She sensed something . . . sharp, perhaps, underneath his cheeky laughter. She ran her hands over her bare desk. They came away grimy. Another item for Peninah. Her boss must be very popular, or was it normal to spend half the morning chatting? She had forgotten how important, and to her mind silly, not to mention inefficient, courtesy was. God for-

bid the bereaved person might think you had a malicious reason for not expressing your sympathy. And a phrase or two wasn't enough; you had to Usten to the story of the death and how the burial went while murmuring condolences: "Nga kitalo, bambr and "We'll pray for you." Christine sat there looking out of her curtainless window blankly, then aimlessly flicked through the files she had studied already. How helpless she felt, how useless. How out of place.

By the time Musozi's visitors left, more than half the morning was gone. Musozi called her back into his office. At the same time an older woman in a faded bussuti of cream and blue flowers came in with a tray and two cups of tea. She placed the tea on Musozi's desk, then knelt down and greeted him in the lengthy Luganda way, with lots of questions, pauses, and sighs. She asked after his wife, the children, the other relatives, the farm, cows, and groundnuts. And then, of course, came the condolences. Christine wondered why Musozi let the old woman kneel through all that. In the office! Her hair was cut very short and smooth over her perfectly round head and it shone with oil. He called her Nnalongo—the mother of twins. She was too humble for Christine's taste. This wasn't the village! By the time they got to the tea, it was lukewarm. Nnalongo had already put in the sugar. It was so sickeningly sweet, Christine could not take more than two sips. Nnalongo asked them what they would have for lunch. Musozi repeated the question in English.

"I didn't know we got lunch here. And by the way, I know Luganda." She smiled to soften her rebuke.

"Some people forget, or try to. You people who go abroad,

Questions of Home

you come back with all sorts of airs. My nephews too!" He laughed. "Nnalongo makes lunch and sells it here. She's a good cook. Isn't it true, NyaboV'

"I try." Nnalongo smiled self-effacingly.

"I'll have matooke and meat. You should have the same, Christine. It's good."

"I don't eat meat."

Musozi stopped fidgeting with the papers on the desk and looked at her in astonishment. So did Nnalongo from her position on the floor. Then he said, "Oh, you're allergic? That's too bad."

"No."

"It's not Lent, is it? I can't keep up with these religious dates. Anyway, nothing can make me give up meat!" he patted his belly and laughed.

"It's for ethical reasons." Christine felt she should explain, in case he thought she had simply rejected his offer.

He stopped mid-face wipe. "What?"

"Well, um, cows and other animals are living beings that. . . that love their lives, and ..." Musozi's incredulous expression deepened. He took off his glasses and peered more closely at her as he cleaned them, as if the answer was in her face. "... And these animals are killed in such inhumane ways..."

"Inhumane?" He burst out laughing, then turned to Nnalongo. "You heard what she said?" He translated: "She said animals are not killed the way people are." He whipped out his handkerchief and wiped his face as if to control his laughter. "Let's not talk about \iowpeople are killed!" He laughed harder.

Nnalongo laughed softly behind her hand, then asked, "And goats? Sheep? Fish too?"

"Well, actually, I eat fish, because, because ..." How could she explain this? Where should she start?

Nnalongo said, slowly and emphatically, as if to an idiot child, "Animals are not people."

"I knoWy but. . . but—"

Musozi swept away her attempt with a wave of his handkerchief "Give her beans, like a commoner. Maybe she ate enough meat in America. Yes, yes, that must be it."

Christine knew he didn't mean to insult her, but she felt insulted all the same, and annoyed at not being able to explain the obvious. Annoyed at looking like a fool on the very first day. Annoyed at everybody's constant laughter. Nnalongo got up from the floor and left, still smiling.

Musozi asked, "How long were you in the States?"

"Eight years."

"Too long, too long. That's why. You'll settle in soon, don't worry. Yes, yes. You'll like meat again. When you feel lucky to get it."

The standard vegetarian speech was silly in response to that. Or was it silly, period? Was it just a matter of time before she would cave in, settle down, become herself again, as Musozi would call it? Whatever that self was. Her American voice, disgusted, silently replied, whatever.

The beans were terrible. They reminded Christine of the meals she ate almost every day for six years during her high school days at Gayaza, a government boarding school. She remembered wee-

vils floating dead in the muddy brown water that went for bean soup. You could not avoid crunching into one or two of the weevils as you gobbled down your food in twenty minutes or less. At least these beans didn't have weevils, but she tasted the memory, made more immediate by the same farty bean smell, and lost her appetite. Back then, Christine had vowed never to go hungry again. Ever. "By any means necessary," she had written in capital letters in her diary, quoting her hero of that week, Malcolm X. Now she chose to eat beans. Very funny.

Christine was so glad to leave work that day. Nothing much was accomplished that afternoon either because Mr. Musozi was called to an urgent meeting. As he rushed out, he slammed another bulging file onto her desk, saying, "Here you go: some more meat to chew on." He chuckled. "The best way to start is to dive right in. Get involved. Let's talk tomorrow," and he swept out, wiping his face and smiling hugely.

At the taxi park, the jostling hawkers, crying babies, and jangling music mirrored the turmoil in her mind. She wasn't able to read during the matatu ride back to Entebbe. There was a lot to untangle, to make sense of, including why on earth she was so troubled. She was home, right? She felt as if she had to make some sort of a decision, but about what? She couldn't turn around and leave, just like that. Go back to the States with her tail between her legs. Then what? This was ridiculous; she didn't have to leave. She pressed her eyes closed to keep the tears back.

The taxi's tumble and drone calmed Christine down some-

what. She looked forward to a peaceful tea with Maama and Patti. Her sister worked as an administrator for a Christian organization for the disabled, also in Kampala. Christine wondered why Patti had not left home and moved to the capital, but was also glad she hadn't. Almost all of Maama's letters praised Patti for one thing or another. At least Patti is here keeping me company, she wrote. You know I'm growing old. Patti reminds me to take my insulin, she drives me to Kampala and the village now that my eyesight is going. I'm so glad she's here. Come back, was what Christine heard.

She was free to live wherever she wanted to, of course. But, repeating this to herself didn't relieve the weight of guilt. A dutifiil daughter should be at her old parents' side, just as Maama had looked after her own mother, and Taata's mother too, before they passed away. Well, here Christine was, back home again, wasn't she? Moreover, she found Maama just as strong and resolute as ever, she wasn't an invalid at all. Maama and Patti now looked after a cousin's twin daughters. Both parents had died. The girls, Nyakato and Kengoma, filled the house with laughter and young voices again, which renewed Maama's energy. So, actually, there had been nothing to worry about at all.

The taxi entered Entebbe's fresh, lake-filled air as the evening mellowed. The sun's last rays seemed to mark the end of that day's possibilities. Christine could not help noticing, again, what had been so ordinary years before. For example, there were no bus stops; passengers called out to the driver, "Awo, Ssebo, ku taala. ""Right there, sir, at the light," or "by the big mango tree," or "ku Leeke," meaning Lake Victoria Hotel, which was opposite

the golf course that had now become a pasture for cows. As passengers scrambled off the taxi one by one, it got Ughter and rat-tied even more noisily. Christine had not realized that she had stored the sensations deep inside, all the small details that made up the theater of the everyday. The memories now rose up and resonated with the reality around her. The way the conductor, a teenage boy with bloodshot eyes (from either too much sun or a drinking habit, already) collected, meticulously arranged, and folded dirty blue, yellow, and brown notes in one hand while maneuvering, half bent, between the tight passenger seats. The oddly familiar whiff of sweat from the boy's armpit as he reached over her head. The sound of the matatu door heaving open and clanging shut repeatedly. Yes, that was exactly how the heavy creaking doors had sounded way back when. That was the true sound of home. Or was it? What about the changes that did not match her memories?

Christine's stop was at Queens Road. She raised her voice. ''AwOy ku Queenzi. "She forced herself to pronounce "Queens" in what she and her sisters had called a maalo, village-ish, back when they were kids. But it wasn't just a different pronunciation; it had become a kiganda word, like how money was esente, from the word "cent." If she pronounced "Queens" properly, the driver wouldn't understand, or would refuse to understand what to him was an affected way of speaking. She, luckily or not, had been to a "good" school, where she had been taught to speak English properly, that is, like an Englishman, which, of course, was impossible for her to do. Not that the English themselves spoke their language in one "proper" way. Nor was it theirs alone any-

more. English was no one's and everyone's now. Or so the unloved step-children to the English tribe insisted. Oh, what tangled webs we weave. Christine smiled. Wrong quote, wrongly quoted! The words and accents in all their wrongness and right-ness were the sounds of home. They made sense here, and she understood how, in a way no foreigner could.

Christine walked for about ten minutes down Queens Road to her mother's house. The residential area had been built for colonial administrators around the 1940s. "Entebbe" meant "chair" in Luganda; the town was the seat of the colonial government. At independence, the capital was moved to Kampala. Entebbe remained a small, intimate town with a few ministries left, an international airport, the half-empty National Zoo, and the surrounding lakeside villages of fishermen. The colonial houses were now occupied by civil servants like her mother had been. They were now allowed to buy the spacious bungalows. Christine was so glad Maama had remained in town instead of retiring to the village, Rusozi, in western Uganda. That was considered the family's real home because it was where Taata was born and grew up, although his family had migrated from the west, somewhere in or near Congo, long before the present borders existed. Maama was a Munyoro from Masindi. The question rose up and faced Christine again: Where was home, then, really? Luckily, her family had grown to love Entebbe, its cozy size, its lack of hustle and bustle, and the blue expanse of lake all around it like a shield.

The walk through the long evening shadows calmed Christine down. Maybe work hadn't been that bad. Surely she would ad-

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just, get used to it. It wasn't a matter of her becoming like them (them who?) or they more Uke her. She couldn't be that different. She sighed. The dusty road, still not repaired since she had left, was the familiar, imperfect, potholed rut.

At home, Maama was having tea in the living room and reading the day's newspapers. She had her glasses on, which had been another surprise for Christine. It was a mark of time passing, and of Maama's coming frailty, however strong she was now. The glasses were perched low on Maama's wide nose, the same nose Christine now saw in her own mirror every morning. Her toes and fingers were just like Patti's. Perhaps they were simply different copies of one another. Looking at her mother, so at home in the familiar room, Christine wanted to kiss her in greeting, but they didn't do that. It was too zungu.

Maama looked up. "You're back. How was it?"

"Okay, I guess."

Maama lifted her glasses off her eyes and tilted her head in question. Christine sat down hard on the sofa and sighed heavily. "Frankly, work was a mess. We did absolutely nothing todsLj.''

"It's only the first day—"

"I know, but I thought at least they would be ready for me, you know, have a computer on my desk, for Christ's sake."

"This isn't America." Maama smiled.

Christine gave her an irritated look, but went on. "And then there's this receptionist, Peninah, who's going to give me trouble, I just know it."

Maama smiled sympathetically and took a sip from her flowered china teacup. "Be patient. You're always so quick to judge."

"Oh yes, blame me."

Maama shrugged and put her glasses back on.

"We've been planning my arrival for months!"

"You know how it is here."

Her mother paused, as if silence would ease Christine s exasperation, then offered in a softer voice, "Tea?"

Maama's sympathy irritated Christine even more. "Yeah, tea will solve all our problems." She noisily turned her teacup over, banged it down onto its saucer, filled it with steaming tea, and put the pot down onto the tray as hard as she could. Maama looked at her for a long moment, then turned back to the paper. Christine sipped her tea. Riming. How did Maama do it? She turned her into a silly, petulant child all over again.

As Christine poured herself another cup, Maama exclaimed, "Oh, look, Lisa's wedding announcement! Your friend Lisa At-woki from your Gayaza days, remember?"

"Of course. Who is she marrying?"

"Dr. Leopold Musiime. He must be the Musiime who heads Nsambya Hospital."

"Isn't he a little old?"

"Not for your age. Lisa is also almost thirty, isn't she? People have been getting married right and left. You've missed. And they all have asked about you."

"About what? Whether I'm married or not, right? When I was coming back."

Maama gave her a long questioning look, then turned her eyes back to the paper. Her body was still, alert. "Is that a bad question to ask?"

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"Prying into my business," Christine muttered. Why was she acting so defensive? She should just shut up. Be nice. She drank the rest of her tea in silence.

Maama turned a page of her paper, and as she scanned it, murmured, "I had been wondering about that."

"What?"

"Calm down, Christine. I have just been wondering, that's all—^whenever people ask."

"If you want to ask me, ask." Christine gave a sharp laugh of annoyance.

"Christine, you get angry for no good reason, just like Taata. A normal person would want to get married, have kids; it's not such a strange question. The house is so lively now with Kemigisha's children."

"Especially since Rosa passed away and I and Patti are not getting you grandkids." Christine snorted. Her scalp began to itch. She scratched it fiercely.

"How can you say that! All these things are in God's hands. And don't scratch your head like that; you'll go bald." Maama softened her voice. "Christine, maybe if you were with someone you'd be happier."

Christine shot up off the sofa. "What do you mean happier'^. Like you were?" She stomped out of the room, ignoring her mother's shocked call.

Christine hurried outside, out of Maama's reach and expectations. Happier? Happier? Okay then, she was abnormal. She had come back, hadn't she? What more did Maama want? She was only twenty-nine! What her mother didn't know was that Chris-

tine had been forced to begin her Ufe all over again when she arrived in America. She had to learn everything anew; even roads were crossed differently over there. No wonder she had felt young, foolish even, for years. Now, back here, she was instantly an old maid! It was ludicrous. She laughed angrily and kicked at the road's loose stones.

All the same, she shouldn't have answered Maama like that. Christine never would have before, of course. She had forgotten how strong and indirect and persistent Maama was. A bully, really. No, that wasn't fair. How on earth had she thought she could live at home with her? Back in the States, after a hard day of fake smiles and isolation, alone in her apartment at night, Christine had imagined the three of them, with Patti, as close companions growing older together; serenely sipping tea or shelling a large basket of fresh peas, smiling. The proverbial strong African family. She laughed out loud again in the fading light. The dream itself was home. Then what was this? Home was supposed to be a permanent, solid fact. A created one was fake, wasn't it?

Christine walked around the house to the back, where she found Patti working in the vegetable garden. The green leaves of the banana trees were streaked with yellow, now that it was the dry season, and the maize plants were sand-colored. Patti was bent over, picking bean pods from the short plants. Her open basket was almost full. She turned and squinted through the evening light as Christine walked up.

"Hard at work, as usual."

"I had to get to these before the insects did. They're ready."

175 ti

Patti continued picking the pods and throwing them into her basket. Christine stood apart, careful not to soil her shoes, as she watched her sister's rhythmic movements.

Patti stopped and turned. "What's wrong? I know you didn't come to help me." They smiled. Patti knew her too well.

Christine sighed and looked away. "It's Maama. She's been harassing me about marriage again."

Patti grinned as she continued working. "Well, you know, she wants us to be settled. To be happy."

"Please! I've come back here; isn't that enough for her? I'm sick of being told—"

"Christine, you know you can do what you want." Patti straightened up and sighed. "Anyway, what you want and what Maama wants aren't so different. In fact, if anything, you've become more like her. I live with her, I know—"

"I really don't know how you manage it, Patti, really."

"It's my home." She wiped small beads of sweat off her forehead with one hand and waved at the garden with the other. "I've worked on this soil for years. Not that there is a difference." She gave a half-laugh.

Christine shrugged, but was reminded of what Mr. Musozi had said as he gave her another file this afternoon. Dive in. Get involved.

Patti looked at Christine sympathetically for a long, quiet moment. "It'll be all right." She touched Christine's arm gently. "I'm kind of tired. I'm going in."

"Okay. Me too. Soon," Christine answered.

Left alone, Christine walked up to the highest point of Queens

Road and turned back west. The sun had disappeared, but the sky still glowed red, pink, and purple. The lake far away gleamed flat and placid. Most of the compounds now had less lawn and more vegetable garden. The extravagant leaves and vines became huge dark shapes in the dimming light. Christine had to admit she loved these disorganized gardens where life unleashed itself every which way. They were the exact opposite of the tiny rectangular patches of immaculate green lawns back in the States that had to be watered, fertilized, fenced off, teased, and begged to grow. One day, all this vibrancy, this living chaos, would be normal again. One day. But this meant she wouldn't notice it anymore.

The dark was closing in. Christine could hardly see now as the last blood-red streaks across the sky turned indigo. She sighed deeply. Patti and her boss were right. She should dig deep down into this mud with her bare hands until she couldn't remove it from her fingernails. Merge with it, like day had smoothly become its opposite, night. Christine sat on a huge stone between the road and a garden. The words she had heard the whole day were like that too: Queenzi, Leeke, cente, and so on. A new language formed by old ones running underneath and over one another. An ever-changing in-between. Christine could accept this fluidity as she now accepted the night creeping up over her, this blanket of warm dusk. And not just because it was inevitable, but because it was different every night: a performance, an adventure. She would have to learn all over again how to live in this new old place called home. The sky was now completely black. And somewhere far away, right now, it was dawn.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Doreen Baingana is from Uganda and lives in the United States. She has a law degree from Makerere University, Kampala, and an M.F.A. from the University of Maryland. She has v^on the Washington Independent Writers Fiction prize, been a finalist for the Caine Prize in African Writing, and received an Artist Grant from the District of Columbia Commission of the Arts and Humanities.

READING GROUP COMPANION

TROPICAL FISH

Tropical Fish details the coming of age of three sisters after the fall of the Idi Amin regime in Uganda. The questions that follow are meant to spark discussion about the impact of politics, faith, and culture on their progress to adulthood, as well as debate on what it truly means to be at home.

THE GUIDE

1. Discuss the stereotypes you associate with Africa and Africans. How does Baingana shatter and/or reinforce those images and ideas in the stories that comprise Tropical Fish^.

2. In many coming-of-age stories, the main focus is on establishing identity and a sense of belonging. How do Christine, Patti, and Rosa "come of age" throughout the collection? What are the

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Reading Group Companion

markers of their developing sense of self? Which of the sisters resonates with you the most? Do you find them likable?

3. Discuss the battle between traditional African religion (juju) and the influence of Christianity that is woven throughout the collection. How does Baingana illustrate each as an influential force in the Mugisha household? How do both strands of belief affect the development of the three sisters?

4. In the story "Tropical Fish," Baingana writes: "The Nile perch is ugly and tasteless, but it is huge, and provides a lot more food for the populace. But it was eating up all the smaller, rarer, gloriously colored tropical fish. Many of these rare species were not named, let alone discovered, before they disappeared. Every day, somewhere deep and dark, it was too late." (p. 109)

How does this passage encapsulate the political and economic state of Uganda as presented throughout the collection? How does it represent Christine s relationship with Peter and her own feelings about herself? And with regard to the rest of the collection, how does it underscore the sisters' relationships with people outside their immediate family?

5. In "A Thank-You Note," Baingana humanizes and personalizes the AIDS crisis in Africa. Did you find anything startling

about Rosas voice in this story? If so, what? How does this story globalize notions of sexuality? How does the author use the exuberance of youth to underscore the nature of the epidemic?

6. Christine's childlike wonder at the relationship between her parents in "Green Stones" is gradually brought down to earth with the revelation of infidelity and alcoholism. What are your feelings about Maamas decision to stick by her husband through it all? How does her relationship with Taata shape her life without him and her relationship with her daughters? What does his death instill in Maama?

7. In "Hunger," Patti s relationships with God and her peers are severely tested. How does her inner voice (her diary voice) differ from her actions? Do you find her to be long-suffering or a com-plainer? How does she doubt herself and her sense of belonging at the Gayaza High School? Do you believe she is truly at peace after her experience at the fellowship meeting?

8. How do Christine's feelings about home evolve over the course of the stories? Compare her decision to explore the Western world to Patti's decision to remain at home. Of the two sisters, who do you believe is more at home with herself by the collection's end?

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Reading Group Companion

9. How does Christine's experience of racism in Los Angeles and Washington differ from her experience in Uganda? What are the similarities? How does Ugandan culture inform her experiences abroad? How does leaving Uganda and becoming more immersed in American culture affect her relationships with other Ugandans? What lessons does she take back to Uganda with her? Do you think she is an idealist at heart?

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