Chapter 3
The First Gift
The man's name was Ronald Kato, and the first thing Amara noticed about him was that he stood up when she came to the table.
It was a Sunday in late November, after the first semester exams, and Shanice had told her only that it was a lunch. "A small thing," she had said. "A friend's birthday. Wear something nice and bring your appetite." Amara had borrowed a green dress from Brenda, who had looked at it for a moment before handing it over, as if it were a gift she was not sure she should give.
The restaurant was in Kololo, at the top of a quiet road lined with big gates. Amara had seen the road on a map, and had thought it was a different country. A guard in a uniform opened the door of Shanice's car. Inside there was a long cool room with white tablecloths and a view over the city, and a waiter in a black waistcoat who said, "Welcome, madam," as though he meant it.
The table was at the far end, by the window. Four people sat there. Two were women Amara did not know, laughing over a phone. One was a man in a cream shirt and gold-rimmed glasses, round and cheerful, who raised a glass the moment he saw Shanice and shouted, "My queen!"
"That is Ben," Shanice murmured. "Be nice. It's his birthday."
"Is he your..."
"He is Ben."
The fourth person was the man who stood up.
He was not tall, but he held himself as if he were. About forty-four or forty-five, Amara thought, with a short beard going grey at the chin and a wide, calm face. He wore a plain white shirt and dark trousers, nothing flashy. His watch was thin and silver. When he stood, he did it slowly, buttoning his jacket, and his eyes went from Shanice to Amara and stayed there for a moment, polite and interested.
"Ronald Kato," he said, holding out his hand. "Ben's friend. I'm here to make sure he behaves."
"Amara," she said. His hand was dry and warm. He did not hold hers too long.
"Please. Sit. Order whatever you like. Ben is paying, and he is a rich man today, because it's his birthday and nobody can say no."
"I can say no," Ben said happily. "But I won't."
Everyone laughed. Amara sat. She held the menu in both hands and read it twice, and the numbers on the right were so large that she thought for a second there was a mistake. Chicken, forty-five thousand. Fish, fifty-two. A glass of juice, eighteen. She put the menu down very carefully.
"Do you want help choosing?" said Mr. Kato.
"No, I'm fine."
"The tilapia is good. They bring it whole, with the head. If you don't like heads, they will cut it for you."
"I like heads."
"Good." He smiled. It changed his face a little, took ten years off it. "So does my father. He says the cheeks are the best part."
"They are," said Amara. And just like that, they were talking.
She had expected to be uncomfortable. She had spent the whole ride rehearsing: sit quietly, smile, say thank you, don't spill anything. But the lunch went on and on, over starters and mains and a cake the size of a hubcap, and she found that she did not have to be anyone in particular. Ben told long jokes. The women gossiped about a singer. Shanice teased everyone and was teased back. And Mr. Kato, who sat across from Amara, asked her questions and listened to the answers.
He asked about her course. He asked what she wanted to do with it. When she said she wanted to work in a bank, he nodded and said, "Which department? Retail? Audit? Credit?"
"I don't know yet. I like the numbers."
"Good. There is nothing wrong with a girl who likes numbers. I have a hardware business, you know. Auto spares. Nakawa, and a yard near Ntinda. Two shops and a store. Do you know how many accountants I've gone through?"
"Four?"
"Seven. In nine years." He shook his head, laughing at himself. "One stole. One disappeared with a laptop. One could add but could not read. One was my wife's cousin, which is the worst one, because you cannot fire him."
"What did the others do?"
"They were fine. They just did not care." He shrugged. "A business can survive a bad year. It cannot survive a person who does not care. I lose more money in small mistakes than in big robberies. A part number written wrong. An invoice not sent. Stock counted twice."
"That's an inventory control problem," Amara said.
He raised an eyebrow. "Is it?"
"Yes. If you don't have a proper stock register, you don't know what you have. You only know what you think you have." She heard herself, and stopped. "Sorry. I was just..."
"No. Go on."
"There is a way to do it," she said slowly. "You count everything once, properly. Then you record every movement. Every item in, every item out. You count a small part every week, so mistakes don't pile up. It's not difficult. It's only boring. Most people don't do it because it's boring."
Mr. Kato looked at her for a long moment. Then he turned to Shanice and said, "Where did you find this girl?"
"In a queue," Shanice said, with a smile. "She told me my shoes were wrong."
"I did not say that," said Amara.
"You said the ground was not nice."
"It was true!"
Laughter again. Ben pounded the table. And somewhere in the noise, Amara noticed that Mr. Kato was still looking at her, thoughtful, and that he was not looking at her the way the boys in the lecture hall did. He was looking at her the way you look at a tool that fits your hand.
She liked it. She was ashamed to find how much.
He drove her back himself.
It was not planned. Shanice had a "meeting" and left early with Ben, and the two women went with them, and Amara stood on the steps of the restaurant with no ride and a stomach full of fish. She was about to call a boda when Mr. Kato came out, jingling keys.
"Where are you staying?"
"Kikoni. It's fine, I can take a boda."
"Kikoni is on my way."
It was not, and she knew it was not, because she knew roughly where Nakawa was. But he said it so easily that it seemed rude to argue. The car was a dark grey Land Cruiser, very clean, with seats the colour of biscuits. A string of small wooden beads hung from the mirror, and a child's drawing was taped to the glovebox, a crooked house with a sun.
"My youngest," he said, noticing. "She is seven. She draws me every day. In every picture I'm the size of a mountain."
"Do you like it?"
"I like being a mountain." He smiled at the road. "Only sometimes."
They did not talk for the first part of the drive. It was not an awkward quiet. The streets of Kololo slid by, then the roundabout, then the long traffic of Wandegeya. At a red light a boy appeared at the window selling phone chargers, and Mr. Kato gave him a note without taking one, and the boy said "God bless you" so fast it ran together.
"Does your family know you're in the city?" he asked.
"My mother does. She calls every Sunday."
"What does she do?"
"She sells at the market. Tomatoes, charcoal. Sometimes matooke."
"A hard job."
"Yes."
"My mother also sold at the market," he said. "In Masaka. I remember the smell of tomatoes. When I was a boy I used to sit under the table and eat the ones that were too soft to sell." He glanced at her. "Don't look at me like that. I wasn't always like this."
"Like what?"
"A man with a Land Cruiser." He said it plainly. There was no pride in it, no apology either. "Nobody gave me anything, Amara. I started with one stall on Nakivubo Road. I know what it is to count every coin. So when I see someone like you, I recognise it."
"Recognise what?"
"A person who is trying." He pulled up in front of Lucky Star Hostel and put the car in park. "It is the rarest thing in this city, believe me. Everybody wants. Very few are willing to try."
She did not know what to say. She had a sense that something was being offered to her, though she could not see what it was. She said, "Thank you for lunch."
"It was Ben's lunch."
"Thank you for the lift."
"That was mine." He turned in his seat. "May I make you a proposal?"
Her stomach did a small, dangerous thing. "What kind?"
"A job."
She looked at him.
"I am serious. You heard what I said about my stock. It's a mess. I need someone to set up a proper register. Saturdays only, so it doesn't touch your classes. Eight to four. I pay a hundred thousand a day." He held up a hand before she could speak. "I know, I know. That's more than a student normally gets. But it's what I would pay a professional, and you would be doing a professional's work. Think about it. You don't have to answer now."
"A hundred thousand shillings," she said. "For one day."
"Per Saturday."
That was four hundred thousand a month. She did the sum in her head before she could stop herself, and what she saw was an entire semester's rent. Food. Transport. A phone that did not crack. She saw her mother, without a second job. She saw Joel's school fees, paid on time.
"Why me?"
"Because you said it's only boring." He smiled. "I have been waiting a long time for somebody to say that."
"You don't know me."
"No. But you can get to know me. Come on Saturday and see the place. If you hate it, you leave, and no harm. I'll still give you transport money."
She was quiet.
Don't walk with bad company, said a voice inside her. It was her mother's voice, steady and firm. But the man in the car did not look like bad company. He looked like Ben's friend, a businessman with a child's drawing taped to his glovebox. He looked like the kind of person her mother would have wanted her to meet.
"I'll think about it," she said.
"Of course." He took out a small card from a holder on the dash, and handed it to her. It was cream coloured, and said R. Kato — Kato Auto Spares Ltd. with two phone numbers. "Here. If you decide, call me. If you don't, I will understand."
She took it. His fingers did not touch hers.
She told Brenda that night.
She did not mean to tell her everything. But Brenda sat on her bed with her feet tucked under her, listening, and her face was so open and so interested that the whole story came out. The restaurant. The tilapia. The job.
"A hundred thousand shillings!" Brenda said. "Per Saturday?"
"That's what he said."
"For doing what?"
"A stock register. It's an easy thing, honestly. I did something like it in S5 for my aunt's shop."
"Hmm." Brenda looked at the wall. She pressed her lips together, and did not say what she was thinking, and Amara waited for her to say it.
"What?"
"It's a lot of money."
"I know."
"For one day."
"I know, Brenda. That's why I'm telling you."
"Is he married?"
"I don't know."
"Did he have a ring?"
Amara thought. She had not looked. Or she had looked, and not seen, which was a different thing. "I don't remember."
"Then find out. Before you go." Brenda unfolded her legs. "I'm not saying he's bad. Maybe he is a good man, and you will make good money, and God will bless it. Maybe. But a man doesn't give a hundred thousand to a girl he met at lunch without wanting something. That's not me being a pastor. That's just arithmetic."
"He's offering me work."
"I know."
"It's real work. I'll be doing real work."
"I know," Brenda said again, gently. "I only want you to keep your eyes open."
It was the same thing Shanice had said. It was strange, Amara thought, how two people so different could both give her the same advice, one with a smile and one with a frown, and how neither of them could say what exactly she should be looking for.
She went to Nakawa on Saturday.
The shop was on a busy road lined with garages, and Mr. Kato was right about the mess. Shelves of car parts rose to the ceiling, brake pads and filters and spark plugs and fan belts, stacked in boxes with handwritten labels. A back room was filled with more boxes, and a desk buried under papers. Two young men in blue overalls moved between the shelves, and a boy of about twelve swept the floor with a broom twice his height.
"Welcome to the problem," Mr. Kato said.
She stood in the doorway and almost laughed. It was worse than she had imagined. Not a single shelf was labelled in the same way. Invoices were stuffed into a drawer. A calculator sat on the desk next to a plate of cold chapatis.
"So," he said. "Can you fix it?"
"Give me a pen," said Amara.
She worked for eight hours that first Saturday. She built a list of every item in the shop, its code, its location, and its count. She asked the two men what each part was called in English and in Luganda, and the older of them, a quiet man named Sam, brought her a stool and began to explain: this one is for a Corolla, that one for a Hilux, this one is useless but we keep it in case. She wrote it all down in a ruled book that Mr. Kato had bought for the purpose. By midday her back was stiff and her fingers were black. She was happier than she had been for weeks.
At one o'clock he brought her lunch in a plastic bag. Chicken, chips, and a Fanta. "Eat," he said. "You've done enough for one morning."
"I'm not tired."
"I did not say you were tired. I said you've done enough." He set the box on the desk. "Madam Accountant."
She looked up. He was smiling, but it was a different smile from the one at the restaurant. Quieter. A little shy, even.
"I'm not an accountant."
"You will be."
On the wall behind him hung a framed photograph of a woman and three children, taken at some kind of ceremony. The woman wore a gomesi, in rich orange silk, and stood very straight. The children wore school uniforms and clean white socks. She had no trouble seeing the woman's face, although she tried not to look at it. A calm face. A serious one.
Mr. Kato followed her eyes.
"My wife," he said. "Winnie."
"She's beautiful."
"She is. She's also a very good woman." He said it simply, and sat down on the corner of the desk. "I would like you to know that. Since you're working here, you might as well know. We have been married seventeen years. Three children. I take care of them. They are my life."
"Okay," said Amara.
"I'm telling you so there is no confusion."
"There's no confusion."
"Good." He looked at the picture, and for a moment his face was tired. "It's not always simple. A marriage. You are very young, you will see. But I would never insult you by pretending it was something it wasn't."
She did not know what he was telling her. She told herself he was telling her nothing, that this was simply a decent man being honest. And yet she noticed that he had said I would never insult you, and that no one had asked.
At four o'clock he counted out four notes onto the desk. Two for the day. Two more.
"That's too much."
"It's transport. And a bonus, because you worked longer than I asked."
"I can't take a bonus on the first day."
"Then it's an advance. For next Saturday." He pushed it across. "Please. If you refuse, I'll think you don't want the job."
She took it. She told herself it was a fair day's work. It was. She had worked every minute of it. The money in her hand felt like something real.
Two weeks later, on a rainy Saturday, her phone fell.
It slid off the edge of the desk in the back room, while she was reaching for a ledger. It hit the concrete floor face down and made a sound she would remember for a long time: a dull crack, then a longer, softer one, like a plate breaking in another room. When she picked it up the screen was a spiderweb of lines, and the display was dark.
She pressed the power button. Nothing.
"No," she said. "No, no, no."
"What happened?" said Sam, coming in.
"My phone."
He took it from her and turned it over, frowning. "It's the screen. And the board, maybe. These ones don't survive."
She stood still. It was a ridiculous thing to be so upset about. It was only a phone. But it was her only phone, and her mother's number was inside it, and Joel's, and the photograph of her father that she had taken from a framed picture on the wall. Everything she had was in there.
When Mr. Kato came in an hour later, she was sitting on the stool with the broken phone in her lap, writing numbers into an exercise book from memory.
"What is this?" he asked.
"My phone is broken. I am copying the numbers I remember."
He looked at the exercise book, and at the phone, and at her. He did not say anything for a moment.
"Get your bag," he said.
"Why?"
"We are going to town."
"I can't. I have work."
"The work will keep." He picked up his keys. "Get your bag, Amara."
They went to a phone shop on the ground floor of a big mall. It had bright lights, glass counters, and a salesman in a purple shirt who bowed as they came in. Mr. Kato said something to him in a low voice, and the man brought out a tray.
"No," said Amara. "No, please. No."
"Let me explain," said Mr. Kato.
"I can't take a phone from you."
"Why not?"
"Because..." She struggled. "Because it's too much. I haven't done anything."
"You've done two Saturdays of excellent work. I have saved more money in the last fortnight than in the last year. My stock count is already correct. For the first time in nine years, I know what's in my store." He lowered his voice. "I would call it a bonus. If you like, a tool. You need a phone to do the job. I will message you about deliveries. You need a good one, with a good camera, so you can send me pictures."
"I can buy one."
"With what?"
She could not answer. He had said it without cruelty, and it was true.
"I'm not trying to buy anything," he said, more quietly. "I would just like to help. You are a bright young woman who is working hard. Somebody should help you. In this city nobody does, unless there is a reason. Let me be the reason."
The salesman had put a phone on the counter. It was the colour of rose gold, thin, with a screen that glowed like a pool of water. It was one of the ones from the posters, the ones Shanice had.
Amara touched it with one finger. It was cool and smooth, and the screen lit up and showed her a face, her own, a little frightened.
"It's too expensive."
"Let me worry about the price."
"I'll pay you back."
"If you insist." He smiled. "A little from each Saturday. We'll agree on it later."
She thought about it. She truly did. She stood in front of that counter with the phone under her finger and thought of her mother's voice saying, Don't borrow what you cannot pay. But this was not borrowing, was it? It was an advance on her wages. It was a tool for the job. He had said so.
She nodded.
The salesman beamed. The phone was wrapped in tissue and put in a white box with a ribbon. Mr. Kato carried it out himself, and in the car park he handed it to her. "There. Now you can call your mother whenever you like."
"Thank you," Amara whispered. "I will pay back every shilling."
"I know you will." He opened the passenger door for her. "You are a very responsible person."
As she stepped up, he put a hand lightly on her back, just above the waist, to steady her.
It lasted only a second. It was an ordinary thing, the kind of touch a father or an uncle might give. She felt the warmth of it through the green dress. And she did not move away.
She did not even think to.
That night she lay on her bed in Room 14 with the new phone in her hand, tracing the smooth edges of the case. Brenda was out at a prayer meeting. The window was open and the air smelled of rain. Somebody in the lane was playing a radio, a slow song about a girl who left.
She transferred the numbers from the exercise book into the new phone one by one. Mama. Joel. Esther's school. Aunt Prossy. She looked at each name for a while. Then she opened the camera and took a picture of herself.
The girl in the screen looked well. She looked fresh and rested, with a bit of light on her cheek. She looked, Amara thought, like someone who belonged in a restaurant in Kololo.
She stared at the picture for a long time.
Then, without quite knowing why, she wrote a message to her mother.
Mama, I have got a Saturday job in an accounting office. They pay well and they gave me a phone to use for work. My old one broke. Don't worry, it is a good place. I am learning a lot.
She read it back. It was almost true. Every sentence in it could be defended in a court. She had a job. They paid well. She was learning.
She sent it.
A minute later the phone buzzed. It was a message from Mr. Kato.
Did you reach home safely? Eat something. You worked hard today. — R.
Amara read it. It was kind, and it was nothing. It was exactly the sort of message a decent man might send.
But she noticed that her face was warm. And she noticed that, for the first time in months, someone had asked if she had eaten, and it had not been her mother.
She put the phone under her pillow and told herself that it meant nothing.
She was nineteen years old. She believed it.