Night Of Knives

II: Uganda - Chapter 14

Veronica wakes to clammy heat. The power has gone out, the balky generator in the basement has once again failed to automatically kick in, and the ancient air conditioner set in the window beside her mahogany bed is silent. Kampala is a kilometre above sea level, but it's right on the equator, and the mid-morning heat and humidity are oppressive. Her sheets are damp with sweat.

She feels enervated, all she wants to do is lie where she is, but she makes herself stand up and walk to her bathroom. The floorboards creak beneath her feet. It has been five days since her return to Kampala, but her legs are still wobbly, and when she looks in the mirror her body is still covered by purple and yellow bruises. At least the cuts and scrapes on her face have diminished from scabs to blemishes.

She brushes her teeth with bottled water and cools down with a quick shower. When she emerges she feels much better, almost good enough to go into work, but Veronica decides against it. Maybe tomorrow, for half a day. Maybe not until her face is fully healed. Bernard told her she could have as much time off as she wanted.

Bernard also told her that journalists have been calling for her, and a British tabloid has actually offered money for her story. The notion repulses Veronica. It would feel like blood money, and people who pay for a story will tell lies to make it better. The offer wasn't even for very much. She supposes the gory details are already available on YouTube for free, and besides, most Westerners don't much care about anything that happened in Africa.

Downstairs the maid is mopping the kitchen's tiled floor. Veronica can never remember her name. The maid smiles but keeps a respectful distance as Veronica starts the generator, makes coffee, takes some bread from the bridge, and goes out to the verandah. Their askari gate-guard waves at her, and she waves back. At least the servants are treating her normally again. Her housemates have reacted to her return with awkward and increasing discomfort, as if Veronica might have contracted some hideous and hyper-contagious disease in the Congo, become a carrier of Ebola virus. Twice she has walked into the living room and caught Belinda, Diane and Linda speaking in whispers.

Veronica sees a huge marabou stork standing by the hedges in the corner of the property, feeding on something. Kampala is infested by hundreds of these storks, carrion eaters with eight-foot wingspans and sharp beaks the size of meat cleavers, standing on spindly legs to nearly half Veronica's height. Their scab-encrusted heads and the huge gullets of pink flesh that dangled from their throats make them look obscenely diseased, like pigeons grown to gargantuan proportions by a mad scientist who didn't care about cancerous side effects. But they keep Kampala relatively free of refuse. Like those birds that clean crocodiles' teeth. Veronica has a sudden image of a dozen marabou storks feeding on Derek's headless corpse, and turns away.

After breakfast she lights a cigarette and considers the day ahead. The heat makes her weak and listless. Maybe she will just sit in the house and watch satellite TV all day, again. She feels like she should go somewhere, do something; but the idea of arranging for a driver seems hideously complex and oppressive, and their house is too far from any destination to walk, at least in her current condition. Maybe she could walk to Makerere University, but there's really nothing there to do, and everyone will stare at her.

Veronica returns to the living room, switches the television on, and turns up the volume to drown out the generator. She channel-surfs between CNN and BBC World for some time, paying little attention until she flips to CNN and sees the graphic behind the news anchor has changed to a picture of Osama bin Laden inside the outline of the African continent. The caption says: AL-QAEDA IN AFRICA.

"Last week's Congo hostagetaking may have been only the opening skirmish in a new front on the war on terror," the pretty Asian woman says. "Several jihadist web sites have reported that Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Meanwhile, American special forces, aided by Zimbabwean soldiers, are in hot pursuit of the terrorist leaders who escaped last week's dramatic rescue of five Western hostages. Three other hostages were murdered before the rescue. CNN today has an exclusive interview with General Gideon Gorokwe, the Zimbabwean general who commands the allied force. Nigel Dickinson has the story."