Gravel Heart(74)

The guard looked displeased and I thought he would shout at Saida for threatening him in that way, but perhaps he too was afraid in a different way. After considering for a moment or two, he told us to go and speak to the receptionist. The guard glanced inside and saw someone passing by and called out. It was the appointments secretary, just the man who would be able to tell us if the Mheshimiwa would have time for us, the guard explained, conciliatory now that he had decided to be helpful, demonstrating to us the joyful caprice of power. The appointments secretary waited for us to approach and then signalled for us to follow him to a desk in the reception area. He was dressed in a short-sleeved white shirt and khaki trousers, the humble costume of a lowly clerk or a teacher, unexpected in the office of such a high grandee. He looked at us coolly, watching us with a sinister stillness that was surprising in someone of such modest and benign appearance, and then he enquired the nature of our business. For some reason, I guessed that he already knew who we were and why we were there.

‘It’s a private family matter,’ Saida said.

The secretary shook his head, so she said it concerned her brother Amir Ahmed. The secretary pondered this for a moment. Amir Ahmed Musa? he asked, and Saida nodded. The secretary reached forward and put his hand on the telephone without picking it up. I thought I had seen a slight leap in his eyes when Saida said Amir’s name. He picked up the receiver and dialled a number. Then he said into it, The sister of Amir Ahmed Musa is here, asking for an appointment to see His Excellency. After listening briefly, he rose to his feet and called out to someone in the office behind him. We are going upstairs, he said, and asked Saida and me to follow him. We went up two flights of stairs and stopped outside an office with a sign that read Chief Protocol Officer. The appointments clerk knocked on the door and waited for a few seconds before opening it. He held the door open and then followed Saida and me inside, shutting the door behind him.

The office was large and air-conditioned, and at the far end of it was a desk behind which stood a commanding-looking man with a shaven head. Nearer the door, chairs and sofas were arranged in an oblong. It was the office of a senior official used to receiving powerful visitors. The man was dressed in light green trousers and the wide-lapelled shirt so beloved by our dignitaries at that time. Now they all wear suits and ties because they want to look like statesmen, but then everyone wanted to look like a guerrilla.

He came out from behind the desk and walked slowly towards us. He pointed to the sofas and chairs as he approached, but then he stopped and glanced back towards his desk. The secretary nodded to Saida and me and pointed us towards the sofas and chairs, then he stepped to one side as if he was taking himself out of the picture. In the meantime, the Chief Protocol Officer turned and walked towards us again. All this walking about was intended to demonstrate that he had complete mastery of the situation, that we were powerless before him. It was something we understood anyway. We were sitting on a small sofa side-by-side and he stopped a few feet away from us. The sofa was low, which forced our knees to rise, and made me feel as if I was cringing. The Chief Protocol Officer stood in front of us without saying a word for what seemed a long time. I thought I felt something in the air, a kind of tremor or disturbance, a chill, but then I realised it was a shiver of fear running through my body. When I glanced towards the appointments secretary I saw that his eyes were shining with laughter or mockery or relish.

We had both immediately recognised the Chief Protocol Officer, if that was what he really did in this office. I gave you that description so that you would have an idea what it felt like to be there and to be confronted in this way, but really we knew who he was as soon as we walked into the room. He was the son of the Vice-President, and we would have seen his image on television news bulletins several times, usually scowling over the shoulder of his father or sitting in the second row on a podium at functions and events. We knew all those people, their glamorous excellencies and their wives, whose images and names appeared to us several times a week in replays of old concerts and old speeches and in commemorations of old sorrows. Here was the brother of the abused sister, in person. He was known as a man of strength and discipline, a ferocious man whose preferred sphere was the army, with its brawn and guns and shouted commands. His name was Hakim, which I expect you know means the one who is wise and learned.

‘Sasa,’ he said. Now what. He said it like a question, inviting us to talk, to state our business. His eyes were fixed on Saida as he spoke, and even when I explained that we had come to request an interview with His Excellency the Vice-President, his gaze did not move from her. Eventually he glanced at me briefly before immediately turning back to Saida. ‘What do you want to see His Excellency about?’ he asked her.

I started to explain about the news we had received, but the Chief Protocol Officer hissed suddenly, a startlingly violent sound in that air-conditioned office, a hiss of reprimand and warning and exasperation. ‘We have come to ask for information about the whereabouts of our brother Amir,’ I persisted, refusing to be intimidated although I thought I heard a little quiver in my voice as I spoke.

‘Her brother,’ the Chief Protocol Officer said with exaggerated gentleness, glancing again at me, as if speaking to a fool who did not understand how close he was to danger. The hard look in his eyes was a warning to me not to try his patience. Then, turning back to Saida, he said, ‘You have come to plead for your brother, have you? Do you know why he has been arrested? You don’t, do you? He has been arrested because he raped a girl of fifteen. She is a girl of good family, still at school, and beloved by all her brothers and relatives. Your brother’s behaviour is outrageous and despicable and unforgivable. That’s the kind of thing people like him have been doing to us for decades, degrading our sisters with impunity. But the time is different now, and he will have to pay for what he has done. He will receive a punishment appropriate to the outrage he has committed.’