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Sarah
They ran into signs of the trouble to come just a few minutes after leaving Budeka. The first obstacle was nothing serious. A small truck, which Babu referred to as a lorry, was overturned at the side of the road. The road was jammed with people gathering up the charcoal that had spilled from the truck. They ignored the protests of the truck’s driver who ran from one person to another trying to recapture his trade goods.
When the people failed to get out of the way, Aguma motioned for some of the men to come forward from the pick-up truck that was trailing them. Looking armed and dangerous, they walked in front of the Mercedes for a few yards and parted the crowd so that Babu and Sarah could continue their stately progress.
“Shouldn’t they do something about the stealing?” Sarah asked.
“What do you suggest?” Babu said.
“Tell the people to put the stuff back. It’s not theirs.”
Babu shook his head. “And then there would be a riot. Do you wish to die for the sake of a sack of charcoal?”
“Would it really come to that?”
“It might. Our people are now on a very short fuse. No supplies are coming in from Kampala and we are running short of necessities. People need charcoal for their cooking.”
“So, they should pay for it.”
“And who would they pay?”
“The driver.”
“The charcoal is not his.” Babu said. “The rightful owner is not here. If they give the driver the money, he will take it and run away. Why should they do that?”
Sarah really couldn’t find a way to argue with that sort of logic so she just shrugged her shoulders - something that she had done frequently since she had arrived in the land of her ancestors. They drove on.
The road became increasingly congested. People were walking toward town, and about an equal number were walking away from town. Everyone seemed to be on the move, but no one seemed to have any destination in mind. They were just walking and dragging their children along with them. Sarah saw more overturned vehicles with their loads spilled out across the road, and then she began to see vehicles that were still upright but just standing still in the middle of the road. Babu’s armed henchmen climbed out of their truck again and walked in front of their vehicles shooing people out of their path.
The road they were on had once been paved but now it was little more than a wide potholed track with deep ruts along each side. Their escorts were finding it harder and harder to shoulder their way through the crowd. Aguma leaned out of the window and called the pick-up truck forward to ride in front of them. They pushed on, with the pick-up truck opening a path. Habati muttered something and pointed out of his window. Sarah followed his pointing finger and saw the mangled remnants of a cell tower rising above the elephant grass in the field beside them.
“No signal,” Habati said.
They all laughed. Really there was nothing else to do.
They passed a bus. Some of the passengers were still inside, and some stood outside. An enterprising vendor moved among them selling food. At first glance Sarah might have thought that a carnival atmosphere prevailed but the farther they went, the more she saw resentment on people’s faces as their escort strong-armed their way through.
“We’re getting close to the bridge now,” Aguma said, turning to speak to Sarah over his shoulder. “These people have been waiting for days now. They don’t know what to do.”
“They should go home,” Babu said. “Waiting here is not reasonable.”
“Is there another way around?” Sarah asked.
“Oh yes,” Aguma said “but it is several hundred kilometers and a very bad road. They won’t go that way.”
“So, they’ll just wait?” she asked.
“They will try to find a way to cross,” Aguma said.
They were now almost at a standstill. She could see the tension in Habati’s shoulders as he edged the big SUV forward. The vehicle tipped sideways as he set the passenger side wheels in the ditch and squeaked past a couple of stalled taxis. They stopped again. Now they were behind a large white SUV with a couple of huge radio antennae sprouting from its roof.
“UN,” Aguma said. “Even they can’t get through.”
“Go and help,” Babu ordered.
Aguma climbed out of the SUV and walked forward past their pick-up truck escort to talk to the driver of the UN vehicle. They moved forward a couple of feet. Aguma came back. Sarah’s grandfather wound down his window to talk to him.
“We won’t get much farther,” Aguma said. “The vehicles at the river won’t give way.”
“So, what will they do?” Sarah asked.
“There is a rumor that the government is sending a ferry,” Aguma, said but the look on his face told her that he doubted very much if a ferry would arrive any time soon. “There used to be a ferry farther upstream. If they can get the motor started, they will send it down to here.”
“How many people are waiting?” Sarah asked.
“Hundreds on this side,” Aguma said “but not so many on the other side. Mostly they have gone back to Kampala.”
A woman pushed in behind Aguma and spotted Sarah’s grandfather through the open window. She started to shout. Babu wound up the window and Aguma scrambled back into the passenger seat. The woman was still shouting and people were beginning to converge on the vehicle.
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked.
“They’re angry,” said Babu.
“With you?”
“With everyone,” he said, “but I am here, so now they are angry with me because they believe I have power. They want the bridge to be repaired.”
“Is it a big bridge?”
He shook his head. “Not big, but important, with a cement causeway across the swamp. It was built by the British. It has not been maintained.”
“But what do they expect you to do about it right now? “she asked.
“All I can do is talk to them,” he said. “I am on good terms with many ministers and members of parliament but that will not help me today. I will, of course, make promises on their behalf.”
“Will they be able to keep those promises?”
He shook his head wearily. “No. A politician’s promise is worth nothing but it wins votes at election time. I think that maintaining the bridge was once an election promise.” He sighed. “I don’t know why the people still believe anyone. They see nothing but broken promises. They are promised the moon and are given nothing because even the most powerful politicians have nothing to give.”
The UN truck moved, the pick-up moved, and Habati edged their vehicle forward a few more feet. Sarah wondered if moving forward was such a good idea. They were being jammed like a cork into a bottle. What would happen when they wanted to turn around and leave?
Babu tapped Aguma on the shoulder. “We need to see what is happening,” he said. “I will walk.”
Sarah started to open her door. She wanted to see the bridge. She wanted to see what was at the end of the long, congested trail, and she wanted to find Okolo’s wife.
“No,” Babu said firmly. “You stay here. I will send back another man to be with you and Habati will turn the car around. After I have assessed the situation, we will go back to Budeka.”
“What about the baby?” Sarah asked.
“We will make inquiries. I will not forget.”
Babu straightened his tie and brushed some imaginary dust from his lapels. Aguma slipped out of his seat and came back to open the door. Surrounded by his own henchmen, Babu stepped forward and was swallowed up by the crowd.
An anonymous, silent man with a weapon arrived to sit in the front seat of the Mercedes. Habati wound down his window, surveyed the traffic situation and began the laborious maneuver of turning the Mercedes around.
Sarah thought about the old woman and the baby girl. She had seen Zach’s sketch. She knew what the woman looked like. How would her grandfather pick Florence out from the crowd? There would be other old women and other babies. Sarah was the only person who had a chance of finding her.
While Habati concentrated all his efforts on turning the vehicle without running down pedestrians, Sarah quietly opened the door and slipped from her seat.
Within about a minute she knew she had made a big mistake. Sitting comfortably in the back of the SUV she had been safely above the crowd but now she was in the midst of it, pressed in on all sides and carried wherever the mob wanted to carry her. When she tried to shove her way in one direction, she found herself being shoved back. She realized that even subconsciously, she had believed she would receive special treatment because she was an American. She was wrong. This crowd was not going to cut her any slack. People trod on her toes, elbowed her in ribs, and shoved her in the back.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” she shouted as she tried to move in the same direction as Aguma and her grandfather. Of course, her words were ridiculous. Nobody was going to excuse her and step aside. Although she couldn’t imagine where they were going, nonetheless it seemed that everyone had a destination in mind and would not be turned aside. She tried to turn around and go back to the vehicle, but she could no longer even see it.
Suddenly a hand reached out of the mob and caught hers. She looked up and saw a large African man wearing a suit and tie and a wide smile. “You come with me,” he said.
He dragged her toward him and shouted at the people who were in their way. She had no idea what he was saying but it seemed to have the right effect. Slowly but surely, they started to move in the direction of the river. “You come, you come,” the man kept saying encouragingly.
At last, they arrived at an open space where Sarah could draw a breath and look at her rescuer. The suit and tie made a good first impression but his trousers were ragged. He wore black dress shoes but no socks, and he carried a battered brief case. They were standing in a small area of calm in the midst of the storm. A line of people snaked around them and ahead of them hundreds of people were being kept in place by a couple of uniformed guards.
“This way, this way,” said the man with the suit. “We go to the front.”
“Front of what?”
“The queue,” he said. “These people are queuing.”
“Oh, you mean they’re lining up for something,” Sarah said. “What are they waiting for?”
“For the ferry,” he replied. “You come. We go to the front. You and me to the front.”
Sarah looked around. Now that her rescuer had explained the situation, she could see it for herself. People here had formed a line and they were waiting without pushing, or shoving. Hundreds of people, old and young, stood without speaking and simply waited.
“You come,” the man urged again.
“There’s no ferry,” Sarah said. “Who told them that a ferry was coming?”
“It is coming,” he insisted. “The line has formed. They are ready to board.”
“Even if it comes, it can’t carry all these people,”
“Yes,” he agreed, “too many people. We go to front.”
Sarah hesitated.
“You mazungu,” he said, “you go to front.”
“Ah,” she said, finally understanding. “You want to take me to the front so that you will be in the front.”
“Yes, we go together.”
“And you think they’ll let me in just because I’m white.”
“Yes,” he said. “Tourists are all in the front.”
She thought about it for a moment. The ferry didn’t sound like a realistic proposition. Even if, by some miracle, a boat arrived from upstream, how many people would it carry and what would they do with the cars? She looked at the line of people waiting in the hot sun. What would happen if the ferry failed to arrive? What would happen if they couldn’t get on board? Would they just stand there all night? And was it really true that all the white people were already at the front of the line, grabbing first place just because they were white?
“Come, come.” The man pulled her forward.
She made a snap decision to go with him. She had no intention of crossing the river, but her companion had been smart enough to come and find her in the crowd and use her as his ticket to get himself to the front of the line, so that’s what she would do for him. Without his help she would probably have been trampled to death by the crowd. She owed him a favor.
They walked together toward the front of the line and no one protested when the guards waved them forward. Now Sarah could see the river and the broken bridge. It was not what she had expected. She had no idea of the name of the river but she had expected that it would be wide and fast flowing and that the bridge would be a massive structure. Her grandfather had said it was a good bridge built by the British.
What she saw was a narrow stream with marshes on either side, and the remnants of a causeway that had been built across the marsh leading up to a cement bridge. Obviously, the rain swollen river had flooded the causeway and washed away part of the bridge. Now the waters were receding and the line of people and vehicles stretched out onto the narrow causeway and all the way to the broken railings of the bridge.
“They can’t get a ferry up there,” Sarah said.
“It will come,” her companion assured her. “It will come. We go to the front.”
Before they reached the causeway they were stopped by a harassed looking official with a clipboard.
“You need to wait over there,” he said.
“We go to front,” Sarah’s companion insisted.
“Over there,” said the official.
Sarah followed the direction of his pointing finger and saw a group of colorfully painted safari vehicles, another white UN vehicle and an ambulance, waiting at the edge of the marsh. Someone, probably the safari guides, had erected shade canopies and set out chairs for a group of casually dressed tourists who watched the chaos all around them.
“We’re not with them,” Sarah said.
“First we take the ambulance,” said the official, “and then we take the mazungus. The ferry will arrive here and not at the bridge. You wait with them.”
She looked at all the people waiting on the causeway. What on earth was going to happen if and when a ferry should actually arrive and they found that they were not first in line - that it was going to stop and pick up the white people first? What would happen if all the people on the causeway tried to turn around and get back onto dry land? The whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen, and the only people who were going to be spared were the tourists.
“We wait with them,” her companion agreed. “Come.”
A ripple of activity ran through the line of people. Sarah turned to look behind her and was relieved to see her grandfather with his phalanx of guards glad-handing his way along the edge of the crowd. She doubted if he’d be pleased to see her, but she knew that she would have to throw herself on his mercy if she wanted to get back to the vehicle in one piece.
“We go,” said her rescuer.
She remembered that she owed him a favor. It would only take a couple of minutes to walk over to the tourists and drop him off with them. After that he would have to fend for himself.
“I’m going to say that you are my interpreter,” she said.
“Yes, please.”
They walked boldly into the enclave of white privilege. Sarah pasted on her best and most confident smile and shook hands all around, bewailed the current conditions, complained about the heat and general discomfort and said that she would be back in a few minutes - would they mind if her interpreter waited for her?
Her new friend said he would wait with the safari guides and drivers. Very soon he was standing in a patch of shade chatting to a group of dusty, competent looking men in khaki uniforms.
Sarah walked back past the official with the clipboard who only had time to give her a puzzled look before something else caught his attention. She followed his gaze and saw a heavily armed band of ragged men and boys filtering out of the bushes. A hissing, whispering sound spread through the crowd.
“Matapa.”
She heard the word the same time as she recognized two of the boys - her would be rapist and his younger companion.
Sarah saw her grandfather’s guards react immediately, pushing her grandfather behind them and turning to face Matapa’s raiding party.
As the crowd fled in panic, she was caught out in the open - a terrified girl in a flimsy skirt standing between two opposing forces like the ingenue in a Victorian melodrama. Screams erupted from a thousand mouths turning from meaningless shrieks into one word. “Matapa!”
Gunfire erupted and formed a violently percussive bass to the chorus of shrieks. Some people fled the scene and scattered into the bush. Some flung themselves to the ground.
Something whizzed past Sarah’s right ear sounding like an angry supersonic bumble bee. Her brain registered it as a bullet. When another bee buzzed by her left ear her brain informed her that she was standing like a fool in the middle of a gunfight. She did the only thing possible and flung herself to the ground, covering her head with her hands.
No sooner had she hit the ground, than she felt herself grabbed roughly by the ankles, and dragged forcefully backward. She had no idea who had grabbed her but at that moment it didn’t matter. If someone was giving her a way out of the mess, then she was all for it and she allowed herself to go limp.
When she thought about it later, she tried to put herself outside of the scene, and recall what she had seen for herself and what she knew must have happened. The scene played in her head in slow motion, like a fight scene from an old Western.
Someone shouts “Matapa” and the crowd erupts in panic. Mouths are open and screaming. People are fleeing. Matapa’s ragged band of children and youths fire randomly into the crowd. Babu and his men fling themselves down on the ground and return gunfire. An almost white girl stands in the middle of the crossfire with her mouth open, a scream struggling to rise in her paralyzed throat. As panic grips the people on the causeway they look for a way to hide. Men, women, and children jump, or are pushed, into the swampy water and the rapidly flowing current sweeps them away.
One of Matapa’s men grabs the girl and drags her backward out of the line of fire. The tourists spring out of their comfortable chairs and flee along the river bank. Matapa’s men retreat into the bushes, still firing into the crowd and dragging the girl with them.
The girl locks eyes with one of Babu’s men. It is Aguma. The girl finally manages to scream but it makes no difference because now she has been pulled away into the thick vegetation. What does Aguma do? The girl doesn’t know because he is lost from her sight.
The old pick-up truck that she had seen the night before waited for her among the elephant grass. Her captor hurled her into the bed of the truck and the rest of Matapa’s little thugs climbed in behind her. They continued to fire as the driver revved the engine and plunged forward through the dense vegetation. Having at last found her voice, Sarah screamed non-stop. She was still screaming when the shooting stopped. She didn’t stop screaming until someone clapped a large, dirty hand over her mouth.