Chapter 9
The Man Who Knows
Patrick came to the university gate on a Tuesday, at lunchtime, when the whole of the hill was awake.
She heard him before she saw him. That was how it always was. A white Mark X rolled up the road with its windows down and its speakers turned to a volume that made the glass in the bank shudder. A song with a heavy bass line, a man's voice shouting over it. Students on the pavement turned their heads. A boda man whistled in admiration.
Amara was on the steps of the library with Peace, sharing a bottle of water and going over notes. She did not look up. She felt the car go past, felt it slow, and felt her whole body go still.
"Isn't that your friend?" Peace said.
"I don't know."
"It's the one from the party."
"Maybe."
"He's stopping."
He was. The car pulled up against the kerb in front of the gate, in a spot reserved for staff, and the engine cut. The music stopped. In the silence, the door opened, and Patrick got out in a red shirt and dark glasses, holding a phone, and leaned on the bonnet and looked at the library steps.
He waved.
It was a friendly wave. A little loose. A man greeting an old friend.
"Amara!" he called. His voice carried. "Hey! Come here, I need to talk to you."
Heads turned. Peace turned, too. "What does he want?"
"Nothing. Ignore him."
"He's calling you."
"I know."
"Are you going?"
"No." She stood. Her legs did not feel like her own. "Come, let's go inside."
"Amara!" Patrick called again. "Don't be like that! It's only a talk!"
She walked into the library. She did not run. She walked at an ordinary speed, with Peace behind her, and the glass doors swung closed on his voice. Inside, the air was cool, and smelled of paper and floor polish. Students sat at tables with their heads bent. Nobody looked at her. She went to the nearest table and sat, and opened her book, and read the same line four times.
"Who is he?" Peace said.
"Nobody."
"Amara."
"He's a man I used to know. It's over. He's upset."
"That doesn't look like upset to me." Peace folded her hands on the table. "That looks like trouble."
"It's fine."
"Is it?"
"Yes." She turned a page. "Please."
Peace was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, it was in the same level, careful voice she used for exam questions. "I don't want to pry. But I've seen your face this month. You've been losing weight. You jump when your phone rings. I'm not stupid, Amara. I know when somebody is frightened."
"I'm not frightened."
"Then what are you?"
She did not know. It was the truest thing she could say. She only knew that for a month she had felt like a woman walking on a roof, listening for a crack.
"I'll tell you," she said. "Not today. But I'll tell you."
"Okay." Peace studied her. "But if he comes again, we call security."
"He won't."
"He will."
She was right.
He came three more times that week.
On Wednesday it was a message, sent to her new number, which she had changed on Monday and given to no one but her mother and the group. Nice try. Did you think I couldn't find it? On Thursday it was a bouquet of flowers delivered to Room 14, big and red and ridiculous, with a card that said Sorry for everything. Let me explain. P. Brenda took the flowers from the delivery boy and carried them out to the corridor and set them on the floor, as if they were something that might sting.
On Friday it was the car again, parked outside Lucky Star Hostel, with the engine running, at seven in the morning.
She saw it from the balcony. She stood there with a towel on her shoulder and a toothbrush in her mouth, looking down at the white roof glinting in the early sun. The window was down. She could see him inside, in the driver's seat, with one elbow resting on the door. He was looking straight up at her.
He lifted a hand. Then he picked up his phone.
A moment later hers buzzed in her pocket.
Good morning, beautiful.
She went back inside. She shut the balcony door. She stood with her back against it, and her breath came fast and thin.
"Is he out there?" Brenda said, from the bed.
"Yes."
"I'll call the guard."
"No. Don't."
"Amara, he is stalking you!"
"He's not stalking me. He's... he's just sad."
"A person who is sad does not park outside a building at seven in the morning." Brenda sat up, pulling a blanket around her shoulders. Her eyes were large in the half dark. "I don't care what you are hiding. I don't care if you tell me. But I'm not going to pretend this is normal. Either you tell somebody, or I will."
"Please, Brenda."
"I mean it."
"I know." She slid down the door and sat on the floor with her knees against her chest. "I'll sort it out. I promise. Give me a few days."
"How many?"
"Three."
"Three," Brenda said, in the voice of a woman who did not believe in the number, and lay back, and turned to the wall.
On Saturday, she met him.
She did it because she could not stand the waiting. She had begun to dread her own phone. She dreaded the corridor, the gate, the road to the hill. She thought that if she gave him a chance to say what he wanted, he would say it, and it would be over. Men like him liked an audience, and if she took him somewhere quiet, there would be none.
She chose a restaurant in Wandegeya, a plain place with plastic chairs, where no student from her course would normally go. She sat at a table near the back. She wore her old jeans and a loose T-shirt, with her own hair in a scarf.
He arrived ten minutes late, in the red shirt, without the glasses. He looked well. He looked, in fact, rather good, relaxed, freshly shaved, with a smell of cologne that she remembered. He sat down across from her and smiled as if they were on a date.
"Thank you for coming."
"You didn't leave me a lot of choice."
"That's fair." He picked up the menu. "Have you eaten? I'm starving. I haven't had a proper meal in two days."
"Pato."
"What?"
"What do you want?"
He put the menu down. For a moment his face did something strange. The smile slipped, and under it she saw something raw and tired, very young. "I want to know what I did wrong."
"You didn't do anything."
"Then why?"
"It's not about you."
"It's always about someone." He rubbed his face. "I'm not stupid, Amara. I know I'm not everything. I know I'm loud and I show off and I talk too much. But I care about you. I do. I don't care about the others. I care about you."
"What others?"
"The ones I don't mention." He gave a bitter smile. "You think you're the only girl who has ever been at a party with me? But I only ever introduced you. Only you. I took you to my mother's house, remember? At Easter?"
She did remember. A small brick house in Kawempe. A woman in a church dress, calling her my daughter. A bowl of groundnut sauce. She had been uncomfortable the whole visit, and had left early, and had not really asked herself why.
"That was nice," she said.
"It was more than nice. It meant something."
"I never said it didn't."
"But you want to leave."
"Yes."
"For him."
"It's not about Nathan."
"Nathan." He said the name slowly, in a flat voice. "So that's what he's called."
She cursed herself silently. "He's just a friend. This isn't about him, it's about me. I'm not happy. I haven't been for a long time. I need to stop, and think, and..."
"And find yourself?" His mouth twisted. "Come on. That is what rich girls say."
"I'm not a rich girl."
"No." He leaned forward, and his voice dropped, very low, so that she had to bend to hear. "You're a girl who, a year ago, did not own shoes without holes. I know. I looked. I've seen the pictures. Your hostel. Your school. Your mother, selling tomatoes in the sun."
Her stomach turned over. "How do you know about my mother?"
"It's not hard. You told me. Do you remember?" He smiled. It was a pleasant smile. "Kyotera. Rose Nakamya. Market seller, widow. Two other children. Quite a story."
"Stop."
"I'm not doing anything." He raised his hands, palms out. "I'm only saying, I know where you came from. I know what you had, and what you have now. And I know who gave it to you."
She did not speak. The restaurant had gone very quiet, or maybe it was only her ears. A waiter went by with a tray of tea. Two old men at the next table were playing draughts, and one of them slapped a piece down with a loud click.
"You were nothing before me," Patrick said, gently. "I want you to remember that."
"I was not nothing."
"Weren't you?"
"I was a student."
"You were a girl who ate beans." He sat back, and signalled for the waiter, and the calm in his face was almost terrible. "I made you into somebody. I'd like a little respect for that."
"I was somebody before."
"You think so?" He ordered two teas, without asking what she wanted. When the waiter had gone, he turned back, and spoke in the same low, pleasant voice. "Here is what I'm going to say. Listen, because I will only say it once. I don't want to hurt you. I would never hurt you. But I have a problem. I have a lot of pictures on my phone. Of us. And messages. And money transfers. Everything. They're all in a folder."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, if I wanted, I could show them to someone."
"Show who?"
"Your friend. The phone boy. Or your friends at the hostel. Or your mother." He shrugged. "I wouldn't. Obviously. I'm only explaining that I could."
She felt the blood leave her face. "Why would you do that?"
"I wouldn't. That's what I'm saying. I'd never." He smiled again, and now the smile was almost sweet. "I only want you to come back. That's all. We were good. We can be good again. You don't have to love me. I'm not asking for that. Just don't throw me away like I am nothing."
Like I am nothing. He had said it in the same voice as You were nothing before me. She looked at him, and she saw both of them, the wounded boy and the cold man, and understood that they were the same person, and that neither of them would let her go.
"I can't," she said.
"Think about it."
"I have thought."
"Think again." He stood. He dropped some notes on the table, without counting. "I'll give you a week. After that, I won't be responsible for what happens. People talk. You know how it is."
"Pato."
"A week, Amara." He touched her shoulder as he passed, lightly, almost with affection. "Drink your tea."
She did not drink her tea.
She sat in the plastic chair until the tea went cold and the old men finished their game. She watched a fly crawl along the rim of her cup. She felt as though she were sitting at the bottom of something very deep.
Everything. The word kept returning. Everything. In a folder.
She knew what was in it. Not pictures, perhaps, not the kind he implied. But there were messages. She could remember some of them, the endearments, the plans, the things she had written in the dark on a hotel bed at three in the morning. There were screenshots of transfers. There were voice notes, in which she called him my love, because it was easier than arguing. There were photographs of the two of them in cars and restaurants, holding hands, looking like a couple.
None of it was illegal. None of it was even particularly shameful. It was only the truth. It was a record of one year in the life of one girl, and if any one of the people she loved was shown it all at once, in the wrong order, with the right face, they would draw only one conclusion.
That I am what he says.
She did not even know what he said. He had not said it. But she could hear the word, in the voices of the market women, in her aunt's mouth, in the small sharp whisper that went round the church pews when a girl in the congregation came back from Kampala with new shoes. She knew the word. She had used it herself, once or twice, about other girls.
She put her face in her hands.
Behind the counter, a radio was playing the news. A politician was promising roads. Somebody laughed in the kitchen. Everything was going on as usual, and she was sitting inside it like a stone in a river, and the water was moving all around her.
It was Shanice who found her that night.
She was on the roof of Lucky Star, on the flat concrete slab where the girls hung washing. It was the only place in the hostel with a view and no company. She had climbed up after dinner, with a blanket, and sat against the water tank in the dark. The city was lit below her. Somewhere a church was holding a vigil, and the singing floated up in waves.
"I knew I'd find you here," said Shanice.
She was in a long coat and trainers, with her braids tied up. She climbed over the low wall like a cat. Without a word, she sat down on the blanket and put an arm around Amara's shoulders, and for a while neither of them spoke.
"Brenda told me," Shanice said at last.
"Brenda doesn't know anything."
"She knows he came to the hostel. She knows you're afraid." Shanice's voice was low. "I know the rest."
"What rest?"
"I know Pato." She said it simply. "I've known him a long time."
Amara turned to look at her. In the distant light, Shanice's face was serious, and a little sad.
"How long?"
"Four years. Since I was seventeen." A tight, dry smile. "He's not a bad man. I don't want you to think that. He can be very good. He paid for my mother's first dialysis. Did you know that? She has kidney trouble. It costs a million a month. He covered it for a year, without a word. I would have lost her."
"Shanice."
"But he doesn't let go." She stared at the dark. "I tried to leave, once. Two years ago. He did the same thing. The messages. The flowers. The car outside. He told me, very kindly, that he had a few photographs. That he'd hate for them to be seen. I cried for a week."
"What did you do?"
"I went back."
Amara said nothing.
"For six months. Until he was bored." Shanice shrugged, an exhausted little movement. "That's how it works. He doesn't want you. He wants to not be left. When he's the one who ends it, he's very generous. When you do, it's a war."
"And now?"
"Now I have Ben. Who is easy. Who gives me what I need and asks nothing." She hesitated. "He's not a good man either. I'm not saying that. I'm only saying, he is less dangerous. Do you understand?"
"I don't want any of them."
"I know."
"I want to be a student. That's all. I want to study, and eat, and not look at my phone."
"I know." Shanice squeezed her shoulder. "I wanted that too."
They sat for a bit. A plane crossed the sky, a tiny red light blinking toward Entebbe.
"Why did you bring me into it?" Amara said. She did not mean it harshly. It simply came out. "That first day. In the queue. Why did you make friends with me?"
"What do you mean?"
"Was it on purpose? Did you know?"
Shanice was quiet for so long that Amara thought she might not answer. Then she said, in a voice that was small and cracked and not at all like her usual one, "I liked you."
"That's all?"
"I did. I liked you. You were so..." She searched. "You were so sure. You looked at the world as if it was a test and you were going to pass it. I wanted to be next to that. I wanted some of it to rub off." She laughed shakily. "I'm sorry. I never meant to lead you anywhere. I only wanted a friend."
"I know."
"I made it look easy. That's the part I hate. I made it look as if it was only a party, only a dress. I didn't tell you what it costs." She wiped her eyes, roughly, with the back of her hand. "I should have told you. I should have said, Don't. Go back to your books. But I was lonely, and you were kind, and you laughed at my jokes. And I thought, one more person. One more person who understands."
Amara put her head on Shanice's shoulder. It was bony and warm. The wind smelled of rain and diesel and somebody's supper. Down in the lane a boda man was revving, again and again, as if he could not make the engine catch.
"Don't blame yourself," she said. "I chose."
"Did you?"
"I think so. I think I did."
"That's the cruel part," Shanice whispered. "It looks like a choice. But it's a very small door."
On Sunday morning, Amara sat down on her bed with the green exercise book on her knee, and a pen, and began to write a different kind of list.
Things Patrick has.
One: messages. Two: transfers. Three: photographs. Four: voice notes.
Things he can do with them.
She stopped. She looked at the line. The list was the same as the one she had made before. Everything that came out of it was the same: a screen held up in front of a face. Nathan's face. Her mother's. Brenda's, Peace's.
She wrote, very small, at the bottom: He wants me to be afraid. If I am afraid, I will do what he says. If I do what he says, he will keep the folder anyway.
It was a logical sentence. It was as plain as an equation. But it did not help.
She thought about going to the police, and almost laughed. What would she say? I accepted money from a man, and now he is holding my own messages. She imagined the officer's face. She imagined the file, the form, the pen scratching. She imagined the story arriving in Kyotera by lunchtime.
She thought about telling Nathan.
It was a very small thought, at first, one she kept away from. But it came back, over and over, in the quiet places. In the shower. On the stairs. In the lecture hall, while Mr. Tumusiime talked about audit trails. Tell Nathan. It would be so simple. A sentence. I need to tell you something. A hand, a breath, a few words.
Then she would see his face, the polite smile from the terrace. The tilted head. Like you were wearing someone else's face. She would see him put the words together, one by one, as he did with code, until the structure stood up in front of him. She would see his father, at Kigumba, marking homework with a red pen. She would see the careful, honest boy at the birthday cake.
Who would want a girl like me?
The question did not feel like a thought. It felt like a fact. It sat in her stomach and would not move. She had done what she had done. She had taken the money. She had let herself be dressed and fed and driven, and she had called it help, and then she had called it friendship, and in the end she had not called it anything at all. She could not go back and stand beside a boy who ate rolex with newspaper on his knees and say, This is what I am.
Better to lose him quietly. Better to end it, with some excuse, before he found out. Better he should think she was cold, or busy, or only a bad friend, than that he should know.
She would do it at the library. On Monday. She would sit across from him and say, I'm very busy this semester. I think I should leave the group. I'm sorry. And she would keep her face still, and not cry, and walk out.
She wrote it on the page, in one line, like a task.
Monday: tell D. I'm leaving.
She looked at the sentence for a very long time.
On Monday, she did not go to the library. She went to the one on the other side of campus, where no one knew her, and sat in a corner with her laptop open and her phone off. She stayed there until closing. When she came out, the sky was dark and the road was wet. She walked home slowly.
On Tuesday, she did the same.
On Wednesday, Nathan sent a message. Where are you? Everything ok? We're stuck on the payment screen. Are you coming?
She wrote, Sorry, very busy with exams. Can you manage without me for a few days?
She deleted it. She wrote it again, shorter. She deleted that too. In the end, she did not send anything at all.
On Thursday: Amara? You alright?
On Friday: I hope I didn't say something stupid. If I did, I'm sorry. Whatever it was.
She lay on her bed and read the last message, and a thing happened to her face. It crumpled, quietly, without any sound. She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth and lay very still. Whatever it was. He was apologising. He was sorry, and it was not his fault, and he had no idea. She thought she had never in her life done something so unkind.
On Saturday, there was a knock at the door.
It was seven in the morning. Brenda was at church. Amara, who had not slept, opened the door in her pyjamas and found nobody there. The corridor was empty. But on the floor, against the wall, sat a small brown paper bag.
She picked it up. Inside was a rolex, wrapped in newspaper, still faintly warm. And under it a folded paper.
She unfolded it. It was a printout. A page of a spreadsheet, the one she had designed for the project, with columns for Bought, Sold and Left. In the margin, in blue pen, in small, careful capitals, a single line.
THREE THINGS. YOU WERE RIGHT. I MISS THE ARGUMENTS. — D.
She stood in the empty corridor with the paper in one hand and the rolex in the other. Down at the end of the hall, a girl was singing in the shower. A radio played somewhere. The sun was just beginning to come through the window at the end, laying a patch of pale light on the floor.
She stood there for a long time.
Then she folded the paper along its crease, and carried it back into the room, and put it inside the green exercise book, on the page headed What was left.
She ate the rolex sitting on the floor. It was cold by then, and a little tough, and the best breakfast she had had in months. She cried the whole time she ate. And when she had finished, and wiped her face, and thrown away the newspaper, she picked up her phone and typed two words to Nathan.
I'm sorry.
It was not enough. It was not even close. But it was true, and for the first time in a long time, it was the whole of what she could say.
She sent it. And then she sat very still, and waited to find out what she had done.