Abyssinian Chronicles (36 page)

A plethora of guessing games went on for quite some time. The priests were cautious; we were optimistic. Didn’t good things come to those who waited? A little more patience would certainly not kill us. And it surely didn’t, but neither did it bear the envisaged fruits.

Lageau demonstrated his aristocratic credentials in good time: he was impervious to opinion, anybody’s opinion. Tears of anguish flowed, falling into shards of dashed idealistic dreams. We felt a painful reluctance to revise our attitudes, our dreams and our scanty inventory of knowledge. No one wanted to admit that they had been wrong in expecting too much, for surely what could be too much for one who operated in a charmed circle of money power like Lageau? But reality had to be faced: Lageau said, “Some people think that there are money mines in Europe.” The wink which followed that statement made hearts jerk with excruciating pain. If there were no money mines in Europe, where the fuck were they? Here? In Siberia? Or in heaven? Shouldn’t he have said that money was not the problem but how to spend it? The wink, as we soon found out, had been a way of turning us into quasi conspirators, quasi confidants. He elucidated: “Priests come to me all the time begging for cars, hi-fis, money and benefactors.” This was delivered in the oblique manner of an aside. In reality, it was a condiment to flavor the harsh mathematical dish he was serving us. He taught us mathematics. When no laughter came, he winked, screwed his finger against his temple and awaited peals of laughter. We were supposed to laugh at the naive, greedy, materialistic priests, but the laughter that came was both lopsided and painful, because everyone realized that we were not conspirators and that, if anything, we were laughing at ourselves.

A dull, heavy feeling akin to bean-weevil-inspired flatulence permeated me and threatened to decapitate my keen interest in this man. All my feelers were out: this was my first encounter with somebody who had it all, and I wanted to learn as much as I could. I felt I had beaten Serenity to the finish line: I had come face-to-face with one of the “millionaires” he had met only in books. This was the first man to make me question the sense of power I had grown up with. In times of crisis, I always heard the cries of fifty babies in the background, reminding me of how special I was, had been. At the seminary, I often thought I was in the wrong company, among toddlers Grandma and I had delivered. I felt I knew something priests didn’t: I knew what to do at the hour life came into the world. Lageau was the first man to make me aware of another sort of power, a more devastating power that controlled millions of lives by remote control. I almost felt ashamed of myself: my former power lay in amniotic fluid and blood and the smells of birth. His power, however, glittered with the sharpness of silver and the richness of gold. It frightened me and held me hostage in its glare.

My faith in him, though, became dented very quickly: I have never been a man of faith. Weeks passed and the diet remained as revolting as before. My view was that any new leader worth his salt seized the initiative quickly, effected changes, even if only cosmetic, and swung people onto his side. The principle remained that a dictator was only as bad as his successor, but Lageau showed no sign of improving things, which was both very strange and sickening. Where was the money? Had he come empty-handed? If so, what was the difference between him and Mindi?

Just as discontent set in, Lageau seemed to divine the situation, and he deigned to ask what we thought about the seminary. I almost felt ashamed for having doubted the man’s democratic credentials. Since I had been bred on tyranny, my belief that all authority contained in it the seeds of tyranny could be excused. I noticed that my coseminarians were reluctant to open their mouths and speak up. I raised my hand, proud to be fearless. I went for the jugular.
“Mens sana in corpore sano,”
I said, quoting my Latin teacher. “My belief is that the bursar is aware of the deplorable food we eat every day. The beans are weevilled, tasteless and far from nourishing. The maggots in the maize flour have become very fat and look fatter on our plates. We would like to have better, more nourishing meals. We would like to have a more
balanced diet. We would like the nuns to take more care with our food, especially on Sundays, when the rice is usually half-cooked and has pebbles in it. We would also request the bursar to buy the seminary a water pump to get water up the hill during the drought.”

Lageau, clad in light blue attire, looked at me and narrowed his left eye to a slit. I felt a bit uncomfortable. He then raised his eyebrows, as James Bond does before setting off an explosion with a remote-control bomb activated by his wristwatch. The thunderclap followed soon after: “Do you think that money grows on trees or runs in gutters in Europe? Let me tell you this: your total school-fees contribution amounts to only eight percent of the annual budget. We pay the lion’s share for your stay here. If anything, you should be grateful that budget cuts have not been effected over the years. I came here to work out a compromise deal between the seminary and its financiers and to make sure that the seminary does not close down for financial reasons. Thanks to sources in Europe, I cannot see that happening during your time.”

I quaked. My knees went rubbery, and my armpits trickled with sweat. If I had not been backhanded and guava-switched for challenging authority before, I would have gone on to ask him what the fuck his flamboyance was all about. Europe, his financier friends and his wealth did not mean a crock of shit to us as long as we ate pig food. Good food was the least he could do for us. We could always fetch our own water—many of us had done that all our lives. But the food! I could feel public opinion turning against Lageau.

The news spread quickly. His attempts to solicit opinion from other classes were met with indifference. There was an element of local wisdom in it too: people who just talked for the hell of it were never respected, especially if boasting was part of their repertoire. Lageau was now being seen as an empty braggadocio who did not even have the decency to make good his boasts by at least rewarding us with good meals. Lageau’s popularity sagged, and Kaanders, in his faded glories, regained his.

The immediate result of Lageau’s revelation was to drive me deeper into the library. What did I need from these fake people? It struck me that one of the worst aspects of dependency was the deplorable company one had to keep. General Amin, whom I had neglected for a long time, suddenly surfaced like a leviathan. He still
preached self-empowerment. I realized the importance of making my own money. I was happy it tied in well with Grandpa’s exhortations that I become a lawyer, but maybe I would not be a lawyer and would instead raise turkeys and broiler chickens like Uncle Kawayida or brew liquor like Aunt Lwandeka. I was determined not to live like the priests. I was determined to beat dependency, and all the humiliations that came with it.

To be honest, I was one of Lageau’s few detractors, for despite his apparent uselessness, many boys still admired him. In a defeatist kind of way, he was held high: He was at least richer than our clergy. He acted like a star. He enjoyed all the arrogance and the privilege many seminarians dreamed of exercizing on the lowly faithful after ordination.

“Look at our priests,” Lwendo said to me. “Aren’t they pathetic? Aren’t they asking him to buy them cars? Aren’t they asking him to get them rich benefactors?”

“Well …”

“They envy him his power, don’t they? Lageau has repaired those lawnmowers which lay dead in the tool room. The seminary no longer spends money on electricians. How much can one person do?”

“I don’t care how much the seminary spends on anything. As long as the food is terrible, it is all wasted money.”

“I work with him. The electrical system is as good as new nowadays.”

“You also admire his shouting as if everyone were deaf? Or is he deaf himself? Sometimes you hear him from a kilometer away, just asking for a hammer.”

“We are a slow people: boys do not often react quickly enough to his demands. They should know better.”

“I do not care for his manners or his fortune,” I insisted.

“The problem with you is that you are just as bad as he is: both of you have got egos too big for your own good,” Lwendo divined.

“My ego is not the problem. It is the glass-balled attitude of people around here. Have you noticed how quiet the black priests are when Lageau is around? It is as if they are afraid to make mistakes. They are like women who gladly let men bully them, waiting, in turn, to bully children.”

Lageau had replaced Mindi as the patron of Vatican dormitory.
He was a fantastic volleyballer, and Lwendo pointed that out to me. “See how he has breathed life into volleyball, a game which was dead. It has become the second most popular sport. Imagine!”

I enjoyed watching a spectacular volleyball game, but I valued a good meal more.

“Look, the man does not spy on anybody. He lets us break the rules as much as we want.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” I said tersely.

“I wonder what really happened to Mindi, though. He lost steam too quickly. People don’t change so suddenly.”

“He was, er …” I stopped short. “Oh, maybe somebody put a knife to his throat and scared the goo out of him. The same might happen to Lageau if he does not stop boasting emptily as if he owned the whole of Europe.”

“Nonsense. Nobody can touch him. Where will they find him? I seem to detect double standards here. You are sore because a white man is boasting, but let me ask you what you did when Mindi was lording it over us?” He laughed.

“I hid behind a fence and …” I almost said it.

“Hiding, hiding, hiding. You did nothing special. All we seem to do is hide.”

I gave up.

My attention had started wandering homeward. A loyal shitter kept me informed about developments there. He wrote describing Serenity’s old craze: Muhammad Ali fights. Serenity was spellbound by his hero’s comebacks. The Rumble in the Jungle fight had taken place in Zaire. Ali had become world champion again, and Serenity could not stop praising him.

On fight nights, Serenity hardly slept at all. He woke up after midnight and waited in the sitting room, watching previews and interviews till four in the morning, when the fight started. He marveled at Ali’s generosity and outspokenness but worried about his health. Padlock was sick to death of Serenity’s daily boxing monologues.

I had done my best to avoid Serenity and his Padlock, but events in the Catholic world finally brought us together. One Sunday morning, when Lageau had become just one of the main actors on our center
stage, the rector broke news which had already whipped Catholics across the country into a frenzy. He announced to placid-faced seminarians, most of whom were thinking about the pig food awaiting them at lunch, that the Holy Father had declared 1975 a Holy Year and called upon Catholics all over the world to join a pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Land. The rector, who had already found a sponsor and was going to represent the seminary, explained that the Holy Year was announced once every twenty-five years. He promised to offer special prayers for us during his pilgrimage. As if most of us cared. Registration of potential pilgrims had already started in every parish, and the rector asked us to pray for the archbishop and for all those involved in organizing the pilgrimage to do a good job. Big deal.

In order to limit discrimination, bribery and foul play, every diocese had been allocated a quota of pilgrims. Chances were good for the rich from poor parishes, because most peasant farmers and civil servants could not pay for the journey and didn’t bother to register. Serenity registered himself, and his chances were good. Padlock wanted to go too, but her efforts ran into trouble because one had to register in one’s parish of birth, and only one person per family could register in each parish: Mbale, her younger brother, had already registered in theirs. Her situation was further complicated by the fact that even if she managed to secure a place, there was no way Serenity could finance her journey as well as his own without filing for bankruptcy.

Padlock dreamed of being the first person in her family to kiss the hand of the pope, to be pictured with the Holy Father, to step on Holy Land, and to touch and taste and feel the soil Father Abraham, Joseph, Mother Mary and Jesus Christ had walked on. She wanted to be the first in her family to breathe the air that had carried inspiration to the authors of the Holy Book, but once again Mbale seemed about to sabotage her plans and poison her dreams.

Padlock’s mood swings came back with a vicious bite. She brooded and filled the house with the stench of her depression. She felt like a bobbin trapped inside its slot, unable to get out unless somebody decided to remove it. She had attacks of hyperventilation. She feared she was about to burst or explode. She remembered the bitter prayers and fasting she had offered at Mbale’s home soon after being regurgitated from the convent. She wanted to fling herself on the cold floor and claw it with her fingers till the nails bled. She could not now go into
voluntary solitary confinement and offer novenas, because she had a family to lead. She put her arms on her chest and entrusted her burdens to God. In the meantime, she hammered the shitters with guava switches whenever they transgressed, and put Serenity on emotional tenterhooks.

Serenity was pinned firmly by the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, he wanted to give the mother of his children a chance, because he knew how much it meant to her. On the other hand, he wanted to surprise his wife’s aunt with a gift all her former lovers could not: he wanted to fly her to Rome and Jerusalem and tattoo his name forever in her heart. Serenity had insomnia attacks. He tossed and turned in bed. He listened to the sounds of the night and became infuriated that dogs howled so much when mating. He felt disgusted with his financial impotence and his inability to please both his wife and her aunt. He got out of bed and consulted his library. He revisited Godot and other characters, wondering what they would have done in his predicament. He got angry that Muhammad Ali could have so much money, when he, a loyal fan, was writhing on the torture rack of poverty, unable to exploit incoming chances. Serenity was wrapped in his reveries for weeks, sauntering through life with dreams cooing on one side and reality heckling on the other.