Chapter 6
Nathan
The first thing Nathan Mwesigwa ever said to Amara was, "That is my socket."
She had not been looking for him. She had not been looking for anyone. It was the second week of the new academic year, a Wednesday night in September, and the main library was packed with students who had left their revision until the last possible moment. Every table was full. Every chair was taken. People sat on the floor in the aisles with laptops on their knees, and a girl was asleep on a pile of coats near the photocopier.
Amara had arrived at nine, after a long day, with a bag on her shoulder and a phone at four percent. She had found a seat at the end of a long table, next to the wall. And there, at floor level, she had found the only working power socket on that side of the room.
She had plugged in her charger. She had sat down. She had opened her laptop, which was borrowed from Peace, and begun to type.
"Excuse me," said a voice. "That is my socket."
She looked up.
He was a thin young man in a grey shirt with the sleeves pushed up, and he was holding a laptop in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. His hair was cut very short. His eyes were tired and amused, and his face had the unfinished look of a person who had not slept much and was not particularly worried about it. On the bag she could read the name of a roadside kiosk. She could also see the shape of something in it, wrapped in newspaper, still steaming.
"I don't see your name on it," Amara said.
"It's invisible. It's written in the spirit." He crouched and pointed under the table, where a second charger, a tangled one with a duct-taped end, lay coiled by the wall. "Look. That is mine. I put it here at six o'clock and went to buy food. I have been guarding this socket since July."
"You can't guard a socket."
"I can if I leave my charger as a flag." He sat on the floor and began untangling the wire. "It's a long tradition. You are in violation."
"I didn't see a flag. I only saw a wall."
"A flag is not always visible." He looked up at her, perfectly serious. Then the corner of his mouth moved. "I'm joking. Take it. I will go and charge in the toilet like a normal person."
"No, no." She pulled her charger out. "Here. Take it. I didn't know."
"Don't be sorry. I enjoyed that. That was the best argument I've had all week." He did not take the socket. He only sat there on the floor, with his back against the wall, and held up the plastic bag. "Do you eat rolex?"
She blinked. "Sorry?"
"Rolex. Chapati, egg, tomato, cabbage. You roll it. I bought two. I ordered one extra, because the woman said the first one was small, and now I have a problem, because I am a man of limited appetite."
"You are not."
"I am. I'm very delicate."
She laughed. She had not planned to. It was a short, surprised laugh, and a few heads turned, and the girl on the pile of coats stirred and went back to sleep.
"Then I'll take half," she said.
"Take a whole one. I am generous."
"You said you were delicate."
"A man can be both." He tore the paper open and handed her one. It was hot, and greasy, and smelled of onions and fried egg, and she realised she had not eaten since a sandwich at noon. "I'm Nathan."
"Amara."
"I know. You are in the group."
"What group?"
"For Entrepreneurship. The Prophet put us together this morning. You didn't see?"
She remembered, vaguely. A lecture hall full of people. Mr. Ssekandi at the front, a bald man in a bow tie, reading names from a list in his slow, grand voice. He taught Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management, a first-semester elective, and he spoke as though every sentence were a revelation, so that some students called him the Prophet.
"I was late," she said. "I only caught the end."
"That's why you didn't see me. I was at the back. I'm in Computer Science. They need one of us in each group, apparently, so we can build the app."
"What app?"
"We have to design a business, and build something to run it. A website, or an app, or a system. I'm the techie." He took a bite of his rolex. "You are the numbers person, I believe. The Prophet said so. Group Seven. Amara, Peace, Brian, a girl called Joan who is in Tourism, and me."
"I know Peace."
"Good. I don't know anyone. I'm only from the other side of campus." He swallowed. "I did not mean to be rude about the socket."
"You weren't rude. You were creative."
"That is exactly what I'd like on my gravestone."
She found herself smiling at her rolex.
They worked on the project for two hours that night, on the floor, with their backs against the wall and their laptops on their knees. It was not much. Nathan had a good idea. He wanted to build a simple bookkeeping app for market sellers, women who ran stalls and kept their accounts in their heads or in a school exercise book. A tool they could use on a cheap phone, with pictures instead of words.
Amara had a better one, she thought. But she did not say so at first. She sat listening while he talked, waving his hands, drawing screens on a piece of paper. He spoke fast, and a little crookedly, with half-sentences that tripped over each other. He had a way of saying "Okay, okay, wait" before changing direction. He was very sure about some things and totally lost about others.
"The problem," he said, "is that nobody has made a thing like this that works properly. I looked. There are apps, but they are for bigger shops. And they need English. And they need data bundles. And they need..." He waved a hand. "Everything. A woman at Nakasero market, she has tomatoes. She does not need a dashboard. She needs to know if she is making money."
"She needs to know three things," said Amara.
"What things?"
"What she bought. What she sold. What is left."
He stopped. "That's it?"
"Everything else comes from those. Profit, loss, how much to order next week. If she can see those three things, every day, she is better than most businesses in Kampala."
He looked at her. Then he looked at his piece of paper. Then he turned the paper over and wrote, in big letters, THREE THINGS.
"Okay," he said slowly. "That's very good. That's actually good."
"I know a market woman."
"You do?"
"My mother."
"Ah." He nodded. He did not say that's nice, or oh, I'm sorry. He only said, "Then we'll design it for her. What does she sell?"
"Tomatoes. Charcoal."
"What phone does she have?"
"A Nokia with buttons."
"Then it must work with buttons." He drew a small rectangle on the paper and began putting numbers inside. "And in Luganda. Can you write it in Luganda?"
"My Luganda is not very formal."
"Then it will be informal. I want it to talk like a person."
For the next hour the library emptied around them. The girl on the pile of coats woke up and left. The lights on the far side went off, and the guard walked past twice, jingling keys. A pair of boys at the next table were arguing about football with the energy of people who had given up on studying. Amara noticed none of it. She was typing a list of what a stall-keeper would need. Nathan was sketching screens. And when she said, "That doesn't work, she'll never find that button," he did not defend it. He simply said, "Why?" and listened to the answer and fixed it.
It was a strange feeling, and she did not recognise it at first. She was used to being listened to by men. She was used to a certain kind of attention, a patient, smiling kind, where she knew what the person wanted, and how to give it. This was not that. He did not look at her as if she was something to be won. He looked at her as though she were a colleague, a person in the room, someone who might be right.
It was the first time in months that anyone had.
At eleven, the guard came by. "Closing, closing," he said, and began switching off the lights bank by bank.
They gathered their things. Nathan wound his charger into a loop, and stuck the duct-taped end into his pocket. Amara folded her laptop. Her phone, which she had put on silent hours ago, lit up on the table.
She saw the name on the screen before she could cover it.
Kato Spares.
It was how she had saved him. A name that meant nothing, that would raise no questions. Underneath, a message preview: Are you coming to Ntinda tonight? I have something for you.
She turned the phone over, quickly, and slid it into her bag.
Nathan did not appear to have noticed. He was zipping his own bag. "Where do you stay?" he asked.
"Kikoni. Lucky Star."
"I'm in Wandegeya. Behind the market. I'll walk you to the gate."
"It's fine."
"It's late."
"It's three minutes."
"Then it's a three-minute walk." He shrugged. "I'm not trying to be a gentleman. I'm just going that way."
It was a lie, and she could tell it was a lie, because Wandegeya was in the opposite direction. But it was such a small, transparent one, and he told it with such a perfectly straight face, that she did not argue.
They went down the dark road together. It was a warm night, and the sky was clear. Somewhere a group of students were singing a church song on the roadside, in harmony. A woman was frying cassava under a lantern, and the smell of oil drifted past them. Nathan walked on the outside, nearer to the traffic, with his hands in his pockets, and said nothing for a while.
"You don't talk much," Amara said.
"I thought you'd had enough of me."
"I haven't."
"Then I'll tell you something." He glanced sideways. "I don't normally do this. Study with people. I'm a bit of a hermit. My housemate says I have a face that scares groups."
"Your face is fine."
"That's very generous."
"It's not generous. It's a factual statement."
"Is it?" He seemed genuinely pleased. "Thank you. I will tell Moses. He will be so annoyed."
"Who is Moses?"
"The housemate. A fourth-year, Mechanical. He thinks he's handsome. He's not. He's tall, which is different." They reached the corner of the lane, where a streetlight buzzed on and off. "Okay. I will tell you what I think about our project, since you asked."
"I did not ask."
"I know. I will tell you anyway. I think you are the best person in our group. I don't think the others know it yet. And I think we are going to do something good, if you agree to do it with me."
She didn't answer. She was a little thrown. It was not a flirtation, she thought. There was no teasing in his voice, no little hook for her to catch. It was only an honest statement, delivered in the street, in the same tone he might have used to say that it was going to rain.
"Why?" she said. "You don't know me."
"I know what you said about the three things."
"That was one sentence."
"It was a good one." He stopped under the streetlight. "Look, I'm not going to be weird about this. I'm just saying. You think about problems the way I wish I did. And I would like to work with that."
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?"
"Okay. We'll do it."
"Excellent." He grinned, a wide, boyish grin that took over the whole of his face. "I'll add you to the WhatsApp group. It's called Business Idea Warriors. The Prophet named it. I'm so sorry."
She laughed again. She seemed to be doing a lot of that.
At the hostel gate she turned and said, "Thank you for the rolex."
"It was my pleasure. And the socket is yours." He gave a small bow. "I'll find another one. I'm a resourceful man."
"Where?"
"I'll think about it." He started to walk backwards, down the lane. "Goodnight, Amara."
"Goodnight."
"Don't forget about the three things!"
"I won't forget!"
He turned and waved, without looking, and disappeared around the corner.
Upstairs in Room 14, Brenda was asleep with her Bible open on her chest. Amara tiptoed past her and sat on the end of her own bed. She took her phone out of her bag.
Are you coming to Ntinda tonight? I have something for you.
There were two more. Amara? And then, ten minutes later, Is everything alright?
She stared at them. It was almost midnight. She could still go. A boda would take twenty minutes. She would let herself in, and he would be waiting with a glass of juice and a small box with a ribbon, and he would say, Where were you? I was worried, and she would say, Studying, and he would nod, and it would all be easy.
She typed, Sorry, I was in the library. Too late now. Tomorrow?
Of course. Sleep well.
Thank you.
She put the phone down.
She sat for a long time, thinking about nothing in particular. About a chapati, and a charger with duct tape. About the way Nathan had said I want it to talk like a person. About the three things she had said, which were not even her idea, but her mother's. She had never put it into words before. Her mother knew, though, with her basket of tomatoes and her exercise book. What she bought. What she sold. What was left.
She thought, strangely, about the third one.
What was left.
She took out her own exercise book. It was a small one, a school notebook with a green cover, where she kept her private accounts. She had always kept it, since S1. A column for what came in. A column for what went out. A column for what was left.
She opened it to the last page. For the past eight months she had written nothing in it at all.
The page stared back at her, ruled and blank.
What was left?
She closed the book, and turned off the light, and lay in the dark for a while, with her eyes open, listening to Brenda breathe.
The next day, at lunchtime, she was in the canteen with Peace when Nathan walked past carrying a tray. He saw her, raised his chin in greeting, and sat down at a different table, with a large boy who turned out to be Moses. That was all. He did not come over. He did not wave, or call, or make a show of it.
She watched him laugh at something Moses said, with his head thrown back.
"Who's that?" said Peace.
"Nathan. From our group."
"The Computer Science boy?" Peace looked over. "He's very thin."
"He's fine."
"I didn't say he wasn't." She gave Amara a sideways look. "You have a face."
"What face?"
"A thinking face. You don't usually have one over lunch."
"I'm thinking about the project."
"Hmm," said Peace, and returned to her beans.
That afternoon Amara went to the library at four, because that was when the group had agreed to meet. She found Nathan already there, sitting at a table with a laptop and a paper cup of tea. He had saved her a chair. He had moved his bag onto the floor, and pulled out the chair, and set a second cup next to it.
"I didn't know how you take it," he said. "So I got it plain."
"I like it with milk."
"Ah. Okay. Then I'll buy a different one tomorrow." He pushed the cup toward her. "But you can have this one anyway. I'll drink the one I didn't get you."
"That doesn't make sense."
"I'm a software person. We don't have to make sense. We only have to compile."
She sat. The tea was lukewarm and slightly bitter, and she drank all of it.
It was only afterward, walking home through the dusk with the group chat pinging in her pocket, that she realised what had been strange about the whole conversation. Nathan had not once asked where she was from. He had not asked what her parents did. He had not looked at her shoes, or her bag, or the new phone with the rose gold case. He had not asked her to prove anything at all.
He had only offered her half a rolex, and a charger, and a cup of tea.
It was a very small thing.
She noticed that she was still thinking about it when she got on the boda, and still thinking about it when she reached the gate, and still thinking about it as she climbed the steps, and when she opened the door of Room 14 she was smiling at nothing, and Brenda looked up from her desk and said, "What's funny?"
"Nothing."
"Liar."
"It's nothing."
"Then why are you smiling?"
"I'm not."
"Amara."
"I'm tired," Amara said, and took off her shoes, and went to wash her face, and kept on smiling at the mirror until she caught herself doing it.
Then she stopped. She stood there with the tap running and looked at her own face in the glass.
Careful, she thought.
She did not know what she meant.