Gravel Heart(75)
I released a sudden unintentional snort of disbelief at this bombast. What people like him are you talking about? What kind of people are you? And what kind of cruelties have you been committing that are different from the ones people like Amir are supposed to have done? That was what I would have said. That is what I almost said. The thought was complete in my mind but I don’t know how much of it I spoke. I had never been close enough to powerful people to understand their methods or how their minds worked, and I did not know if it was best to grovel or to stand firm. Saida put her hand firmly on my knee before I could get going and I don’t know if I managed anything more than something blundering and incoherent, some expulsion of noise. I am not a brave or even a reckless man. Whatever I said came out before I could think to be afraid, although our world then was full of fear. Hakim glanced my way, as if waiting for me to continue, but I heeded the warning in those stony eyes.
‘May we know where he is, so we can hear his story from him?’ Saida asked. ‘So we can see how we may help him?’
‘No you may not,’ Hakim the Chief Protocol Officer said.
‘It cannot be right that you will not allow us to see him and offer him what assistance we can for his defence,’ Saida said. ‘May we at least see him and see that he is well and hear what he has to say for himself?’
‘No you may not,’ Hakim the Chief Protocol Officer repeated, and I thought I heard the appointments secretary chuckle softly to himself. ‘When or if it is considered advisable that you should see your brother,’ Hakim continued, ‘proper authorities will inform you.’
‘May we see the Mheshimiwa to ask him this favour personally?’ Saida asked again. ‘I cannot believe the accusation you have made against my brother. It cannot be as you describe.’
‘No, you may not, and it is as I describe,’ Hakim said. ‘It is not I who has made the accusation but the girl herself. But above all you cannot see His Excellency because he is out of the country on a tour of Asia for the next four weeks.’ With that the Protocol Officer turned back towards his desk and said over his shoulder, ‘You may go now.’
‘What will happen to him? Doesn’t there have to be a trial?’ Saida asked, speaking stridently for the first time, desperately. ‘You can’t brush us away like this as if we are just curious bystanders. He’s my brother. Go to your heart and ask there how it feels for a sister to worry for the safety of her brother.’
The Chief Protocol Officer sat down at his desk without replying, and the secretary opened the door and held out his arm for us to leave. He did this with his head cocked solicitously to one side, as if he meant us to go for our own good, but the gesture was accompanied by a sneering flourish he did not try to disguise. When we were back in reception, he took down our names and address and told us he would be in touch if we were required or if there was any information to give us. He told us that his name was Abdalla Haji. I saw that there was still a small light of excitement in his eyes and I could not be sure exactly why. Was it pleasure at the bureaucratic power available to him? Was it the pleasure of seeing the Protocol Officer flex his muscles? Or just the excitement of participating in cruelty?
We walked in silence all the way home, and when we got there we went over everything again. What will they do to him? What is the punishment for what they say he has done? I said I did not know. It must have been Hakim who ordered his arrest, an angry brother affronted by the dishonour to his family. Did you hear that people like him stuff? Perhaps his anger will diminish with time, I said, although to me he seemed a man capable of any cruelty. Maybe his father will be capable of more mercy when he returns from his tour.
No, I don’t think it’s hopeless, Saida said. Maybe he’s just trying to frighten us. That secretary will send us news of Amir’s whereabouts, or why did he bother to take our address? He’ll send us word in a day or two, and then we can go and see him and take some food and fresh clothes.
Yes, I said, and my scepticism must have come through in my voice because Saida looked wounded but did not reply for a moment. Then she proceeded to make a list of the things Amir would need in prison until something was resolved. I listened to her and wondered if I should get a piece of paper and write them down. It seemed a long list. Perhaps Saida was beginning to resign herself to a lengthy wait. I still thought that the best we could do was to wait and hope that tempers would cool, and perhaps pray that the Vice-President, when he returned from his tour of Asia, would show Amir clemency. He was said to be a thoughtful and considerate man whose gifts were wasted on the work he had to do. He had trained as a veterinary officer and worked for the agricultural research unit before politics claimed him and rewarded him with high office. Perhaps we would just have to pray that what was said of him would turn out to be true, and that he would prove to be a man capable of compassion. I did not think Chief Protocol Officer Hakim was likely to prove capable of that. But suppose it really was true that Amir had raped the girl, then kindness was most likely out of the question. I did not say this to Saida, because she seemed to have cheered herself up with the long list of items Amir would need, and I did not want to depress her again. But no, I did not think Chief Protocol Officer Hakim was intending to show clemency, and maybe from where he stood, there was no reason to consider doing so.
‘What will they do to him?’ Saida asked again after a long silence. I did not think there would be a trial for a while, if at all. Ours was not a government that bothered much with trials. I thought Amir would stay in jail or wherever he was held until Hakim had glutted his sense of injury and outrage at the degradation visited on his family. Nor did I think the Vice-President would overrule his son if his anger proved as implacable as I imagined it to be. But perhaps Yusuf was right, and there was no coercion. What exactly did Yusuf mean when he had said with such distaste that Amir had a reputation? A reputation for what exactly? For seducing vulnerable girls? For having reckless affairs with inappropriate women? For avarice? Yusuf had also said that he thought perhaps Amir and the Vice-President’s daughter knew what they were doing, and I hoped that was so, that they were just young lovers doing what young lovers do. And the girl, whose name I did not know then, was lying low for the time being until her brother’s rage had cooled, and would seek to extricate her lover when her father returned. That was the best we could hope for, it seemed to me, although I did not think it would save Amir from bruises and humiliations in the meantime.