The Minister
by Ruth Mukwana
The Minister arrived in Truck Town in his Hummer, the color of the Ugandan military’s uniform—brown, green, black—flanked by his henchmen who carried Kalashnikovs across their chests. His arrival always evoked excitement in Truck Town, the kind of excitement a cherished daughter conjured every time she visited her family. Half-naked children ran to touch The Minister’s car, no longer afraid of the men with guns. Old men in small groups, sitting on the verandas of their houses, drinking waragi and smoking tobacco, nodded in admiration; one of their own had succeeded, which kept them hoping for better things, better days.
Not Big Mama, though, who owned the only bar in Truck Town. She was called Big Mama not because she was a large woman. In fact, she was slender and tall with a giraffe neck and a hint of dimples. She was called Big Mama because she was tough.
Big Mama was wary of The Minister and his henchmen. The money he now threw around, the charisma he now exhibited, the nice things he did, like picking up babies and playing with them, the dark tailored suits he wore, none of it made her forget the things he and his henchmen had done during the war or pretend that things were going right in the country. It disturbed her that instead of shunning him everyone was now worshipping him. All she wanted to do was force him to acknowledge the things he’d done, for if he did, perhaps she could heal and not drown in waragi. She failed to confront him: He’d turn up, and she’d see the guns.
The Minister walked around the town, a small crowd of children and men following him and laughing at everything he said. Even when he said jump, they laughed as they jumped. He knew the town well, having grown up there. The son of a truck driver, he only went to primary school, for there was no money for his higher education. He remained in the town doing small jobs here and there, and because of that the town people called him Small Boy, a name that never sat well with him, especially after he became a teenager. Then the war started. The Small Boy became a Captain. He was fifteen years old.
~
At the bar, The Minister found Big Mama behind the counter drinking her fourth bottle of Nile Beer as she counted the money she had made during the day. Her drinking had worsened after the war, and every time she saw The Minister, she drank more. She felt his presence before she saw him. Her hands trembled, her heart raced before she remembered that the war had ended. She folded the money and put it inside her bra.
“Minister,” she said, “how good of you to grace us with your presence. Shall I bring the usual?”
“Yes, yes, the usual. But can one of the girls serve us, eeh?” He winked his good eye at a girl dressed in a tight, black dress cleaning plastic tables. His left eye had a patch. Shrapnel from a bomb.
“The girls are busy,” Big Mama said.
“Busy? For The Minister?” He raised the eyelid on his good eye, and Big Mama looked away from his distorted face. “We’re hungry tonight,” he said. She turned back toward him and saw him lick his lips in a way that made her recoil. She stared at his large suit, which hung off his body and reminded her of the days they used to call him Small Boy. To her, he’d always be Small Boy.
“No, not for The Minister,” Big Mama smiled. “The nightshift has just started. They’re getting ready. They’ll come out soon,” Big Mama said, and went off to fetch the glasses of waragi and slices of lemon.
~
During the war, when they came to the bar, the young boys and girls called him Captain and each other Ninja. Big Mama used to watch them struggle to carry Kalashnikovs bigger than them, drunk on power and war. As she listened to them, they sounded as though they were chatting about games.
“Captain, did you see his eyes before you shot him? Did you see them, big eyes, eeh, about to explode out of his sockets?”
“And he pissed on himself.”
They laughed. “A grown man, Comrade, pissing in his pants!”
“Oh how he begged for his life . . . please, please don’t shoot, don’t do this. Take the money, take everything, please.”
“Oh, but Captain is tough, he shoot him in the head, right in the head. Psst . . . blood. To the Captain,” they shouted and gulped the waragi.
Big Mama would flinch as she listened, but she let the girls serve them waragi. They were fighting the rebels, fighting for peace. Sometimes she barked at them to stop. Then, they were still children. They listened to her.
~
The bar had started to buzz with people, and The Minister invited more to join his table. Red, yellow, and blue bulbs dangling from black wires were switched on, exposing brown brick walls covered with soot and bullet holes. Bob Marley songs mixed with the loud conversations in the bar. They breathed in the smoke from roasting meat. The Minister’s loud and boisterous voice carried throughout the bar and could be heard praising the government and calling out for Uganda Waragi for everyone. Regular waragi would not do.
After knocking back another bottle of Nile Beer, Big Mama returned with tin candles, a bottle of Uganda Waragi, and small glasses on a metallic tray, which she placed on the dirty-white plastic table. She put a thin slice of lemon in each glass, twisted the cap from the bottle, and poured the clear liquid into the glasses until they overflowed. Once they were all full, she handed each man a glass, the clear liquid spilling on her hands. She remembered how, after what had happened during the war, she constantly thought about putting poison in their drinks. But then the rebels were defeated. Jubilations everywhere. Rebuilding the town was planned, but never commenced. Then, putting up with The Minister and his henchmen seemed a small price for peace.
During the first few years after the war, Big Mama focused on the future. It was best to forget the past, everyone said, no need to re-open wounds. But, The Minister would come in his Hummer and the wounds would start to itch and she had to scratch them.
Big Mama satiated the illusion of peace with alcohol, and the second she was sober, the price for peace weighed her down.
“How about our roasted meat? And the girls, why aren’t they serving us?” The Minister asked, his voice cutting through her thoughts.
“Minister, you’re already served,” Big Mama said.
“We want their company, eeh?” The Minister said.
“They’ll come as soon as they’re ready,” Big Mama said. She thought about drinking something stronger. She needed to make herself bolder.
“That one,” he pointed at the girl serving drinks at another table. “She’s ready, isn’t she?”
“Patience, Minister, they’ll come soon,” Big Mama said.
“And the music, do something about the music, eeh, put something more, more . . .” he danced with his shoulders and put his hands up in the air as though the words were lingering there.
“Upbeat,” one of the henchmen said.
“Yes, upbeat,” The Minister said.
“How about the money for the drinks?” Big Mama asked.
“Later, I pay you later.”
“Now, you pay now. Last time you didn’t pay,” she said and stretched her right hand out until it was in front of him.
“Ah, I didn’t pay. Well, one for the war. I fought the war, for all of you,” he winked his good eye and pointed his index finger at everyone around the table.
“Minister, you did, indeed you did, but I have to buy food, pay rent, keep the business going.”
“I’ll pay you later,” he said.
They glared at each other.
~
The war that had started in a small village dragged on and engulfed the whole country, turned neighbors into enemies, tore families apart. The children became young soldiers who carried the Kalashnikovs confidently, the guns no longer weighing them down. Their faces wore hard lines and their stories became more violent, more personal. Women being raped, bottles pushed inside their vaginas. Children made to kill their parents so they could join the war, and those who couldn’t fight were left limbless. Villages were erased, farms set on fire, to flush out the rebels, the soldiers said. Big Mama pleaded with them to stop telling the war stories. They didn’t.
Truck Town became a ghost town. Big Mama’s bar that used to be awash with customers, loud music, and girls that were paid to entertain, became empty. A handful of regulars turned up, but most of them left as soon as the young soldiers came, for they’d get drunk and do random things like command whomever was in their sight to climb on a table and dance on his head, drink a bottle of beer in thirty seconds. Sometimes they’d cock their guns at someone’s head, threaten to shoot, and laugh at the look of terror in their victim’s eyes. At other times, they went outside and fired their guns into the Ugandan darkness.
These things used to frighten Big Mama, but she’d drink her waragi and pray for the war to end so the children could go back to being children, until the night the bar ran out of waragi.
That night, they arrived earlier than they normally did. As soon as they entered the bar, Big Mama knew something was wrong. It was the way Captain paced up and down the bar, the way he cocked his gun at the slightest sound, and the way he drank the waragi—too quickly and straight from the bottle. They were silent. The bar was quiet. No tales of horror. Just drinking and waiting: Big Mama for them to leave, and they, for the night to turn into day. And then, Captain asked for another bottle of waragi. One of the girls, Irene, went to get one but came back empty handed.
“Bring something else. Gin. Whiskey, anything,” Captain said.
“There’s nothing left.”
“Nothing? What do you mean nothing is left?”
Irene shrugged.
“Is that how you talk to me?”
“It’s finished,” she said.
“Let’s go look.” He grabbed her by the arm as he kicked chairs and tables out of the way and took her into the store at the back where the others pushed crates on to the floor breaking empty bottles until one of the Ninjas called out to the Captain; he had found a bottle of waragi.
“You lie,” Captain said. “Why you lie to me?” he asked holding the bottle in his hands.
“Captain.” One of the others cocked his gun.
“No,” he shook his head and walked over to Big Mama who was behind the counter. “She lied to me. Why? Let’s go,” he said and kicked her. Before Big Mama could comprehend what was happening, before she could throw herself at them, before she could fight for Irene, they had left. She never saw Irene again, and she feared to ask; she had heard them boast about the killings so many times. Her guilt was immediate.
~
Big Mama sang along to Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up,” her balance slightly off as she returned to the table with the tray of sizzling roasted meat. She continued to sing, her face breaking into smiles as she listened to The Minister listing on his fingers all the things the new government had done for its people:
“We have built schools, hospitals, roads. Everyone has electricity,” and then he stood up and shouted, “Government of Change, oye, Government of Change, oye,” his fist raised in the air, his good eye wide open, and the people in the bar that had now filled all the tables and chairs, roared along with him.
Even Big Mama joined and shouted until everyone else had stopped and all their eyes turned upon her. She burst into laughter, “Minister, you’re not serious?” she said. “Only a week ago, my auntie died of malaria because the only clinic we have in this town had no tablets. Government of Change, oye,” she shouted.
The noise slurped out of the bar. Not even the sound of breathing could be heard. Even “Get Up, Stand Up,” came to an end. The silence turned into fear paralyzing everyone in the bar, reminding them of the children with guns.
“Eeh, baby steps, this is a big country. We start in Kampala and then we come to the small towns and villages,” The Minister said.
“But then, Minister, stop talking like this government has done much apart from steal, steal, steal money. The money for the schools has been stolen. The money for the hospitals is gone. The money for the roads, vanished!”
“Big Mama,” The Minister’s face was no longer jovial. His voice steel. With his good eye half closed, his right hand moved down to his pockets and he felt for his pistol as he clenched his teeth.
“Oops, am sorry, did I misspeak?” Big Mama’s voice was high pitched. She walked over to him and held him from behind, “Our Minister,” she sang, swaying from her right foot to her left, “doesn’t like to hear anything bad about the corrupt government. Our Minister, he used to be Small Boy…”
The Minister turned his head around and faced her for a second and then straightened himself in his chair. He picked a piece of meat and threw it into his mouth. It burned his tongue. He spit it into his hands, blew on it, threw it back in his mouth and started to chew.
“Let’s eat,” he said, “this one is drunk.”
Everyone released their breath and Bob Marley’s “Africa Unite” started to play.
“Big Mama,” The Minister called as she walked away. He waited for her to turn towards him and said, “I want the girls to serve me.”
Big Mama slowly walked back and stood in front of him. “They’re not going to serve you tonight,” she said. “They’re busy, busy, busy.”
The Minister leapt to his feet, slammed the table sending the food and glasses flying and ending up on the clothes and shocked faces of the people seated around the table. In one step, he was at the next table. He grabbed a girl pouring drinks for a group of young women, dragged her and stopped in front of Big Mama, his pistol on the girl’s temple. The henchmen, following their leader, raised their Kalashnikovs.
Big Mama stared at him, but all she saw was the vision of Irene as she was hauled out of the bar. She thought about all the things she could have done to stop him from taking her away and remembered the many ways she had thought about avenging her.
“Oh no,” she said. “The Minister is angry again. What’s the matter this time? Oops, The Minister doesn’t like questions. What’s The Minister going to do now? Kill again?”
“Big Mama…”
“Yes, Minister, did I misspeak again?”
The Minister let go of the girl and pointed his pistol at Big Mama.
“You should never disrespect me,” he said and pushed her down. “I didn’t fight for this country to be belittled by the likes of you.” He yanked her up and made her kneel in front of him.
Big Mama knelt, her back straight. The pistol in her face sobered her. Her heart pounded fast, and she closed her eyes tightly as though that would deflect the impact of the bullet. She had survived the war, and now she was going to die a senseless death. She could apologize, ask the girls to serve him and his henchmen, and perhaps everything would go back to normal. Except, she knew it wouldn’t, it couldn’t. During the war, she was frightened. One girl could disappear so others could live. Big Mama wanted to live but instead of living, she was dying slowly. If only she could tell them that she never asked anyone to fight for her, to destroy her life. If only. They chose to pick up guns, and now they were carrying on as though that was justification for continuing the torture. She heard the gun click and held her breath and thought about death, and visualized a long road of light and blood, and felt Irene’s mercy.
Ruth Mukwana is a fiction writer from Uganda. She is currently working for the United Nations on humanitarian affairs in New York. She’s a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars (MFA) and holds a Bachelors degree in Law from Makerere University. Her short stories have appeared in Solstice Magazine and Black Warriors Review.
“The Minister” first appeared in CONSEQUENCE magazine.
by Ruth Mukwana
The Minister arrived in Truck Town in his Hummer, the color of the Ugandan military’s uniform—brown, green, black—flanked by his henchmen who carried Kalashnikovs across their chests. His arrival always evoked excitement in Truck Town, the kind of excitement a cherished daughter conjured every time she visited her family. Half-naked children ran to touch The Minister’s car, no longer afraid of the men with guns. Old men in small groups, sitting on the verandas of their houses, drinking waragi and smoking tobacco, nodded in admiration; one of their own had succeeded, which kept them hoping for better things, better days.
Not Big Mama, though, who owned the only bar in Truck Town. She was called Big Mama not because she was a large woman. In fact, she was slender and tall with a giraffe neck and a hint of dimples. She was called Big Mama because she was tough.
Big Mama was wary of The Minister and his henchmen. The money he now threw around, the charisma he now exhibited, the nice things he did, like picking up babies and playing with them, the dark tailored suits he wore, none of it made her forget the things he and his henchmen had done during the war or pretend that things were going right in the country. It disturbed her that instead of shunning him everyone was now worshipping him. All she wanted to do was force him to acknowledge the things he’d done, for if he did, perhaps she could heal and not drown in waragi. She failed to confront him: He’d turn up, and she’d see the guns.
The Minister walked around the town, a small crowd of children and men following him and laughing at everything he said. Even when he said jump, they laughed as they jumped. He knew the town well, having grown up there. The son of a truck driver, he only went to primary school, for there was no money for his higher education. He remained in the town doing small jobs here and there, and because of that the town people called him Small Boy, a name that never sat well with him, especially after he became a teenager. Then the war started. The Small Boy became a Captain. He was fifteen years old.
~
At the bar, The Minister found Big Mama behind the counter drinking her fourth bottle of Nile Beer as she counted the money she had made during the day. Her drinking had worsened after the war, and every time she saw The Minister, she drank more. She felt his presence before she saw him. Her hands trembled, her heart raced before she remembered that the war had ended. She folded the money and put it inside her bra.
“Minister,” she said, “how good of you to grace us with your presence. Shall I bring the usual?”
“Yes, yes, the usual. But can one of the girls serve us, eeh?” He winked his good eye at a girl dressed in a tight, black dress cleaning plastic tables. His left eye had a patch. Shrapnel from a bomb.
“The girls are busy,” Big Mama said.
“Busy? For The Minister?” He raised the eyelid on his good eye, and Big Mama looked away from his distorted face. “We’re hungry tonight,” he said. She turned back toward him and saw him lick his lips in a way that made her recoil. She stared at his large suit, which hung off his body and reminded her of the days they used to call him Small Boy. To her, he’d always be Small Boy.
“No, not for The Minister,” Big Mama smiled. “The nightshift has just started. They’re getting ready. They’ll come out soon,” Big Mama said, and went off to fetch the glasses of waragi and slices of lemon.
~
During the war, when they came to the bar, the young boys and girls called him Captain and each other Ninja. Big Mama used to watch them struggle to carry Kalashnikovs bigger than them, drunk on power and war. As she listened to them, they sounded as though they were chatting about games.
“Captain, did you see his eyes before you shot him? Did you see them, big eyes, eeh, about to explode out of his sockets?”
“And he pissed on himself.”
They laughed. “A grown man, Comrade, pissing in his pants!”
“Oh how he begged for his life . . . please, please don’t shoot, don’t do this. Take the money, take everything, please.”
“Oh, but Captain is tough, he shoot him in the head, right in the head. Psst . . . blood. To the Captain,” they shouted and gulped the waragi.
Big Mama would flinch as she listened, but she let the girls serve them waragi. They were fighting the rebels, fighting for peace. Sometimes she barked at them to stop. Then, they were still children. They listened to her.
~
The bar had started to buzz with people, and The Minister invited more to join his table. Red, yellow, and blue bulbs dangling from black wires were switched on, exposing brown brick walls covered with soot and bullet holes. Bob Marley songs mixed with the loud conversations in the bar. They breathed in the smoke from roasting meat. The Minister’s loud and boisterous voice carried throughout the bar and could be heard praising the government and calling out for Uganda Waragi for everyone. Regular waragi would not do.
After knocking back another bottle of Nile Beer, Big Mama returned with tin candles, a bottle of Uganda Waragi, and small glasses on a metallic tray, which she placed on the dirty-white plastic table. She put a thin slice of lemon in each glass, twisted the cap from the bottle, and poured the clear liquid into the glasses until they overflowed. Once they were all full, she handed each man a glass, the clear liquid spilling on her hands. She remembered how, after what had happened during the war, she constantly thought about putting poison in their drinks. But then the rebels were defeated. Jubilations everywhere. Rebuilding the town was planned, but never commenced. Then, putting up with The Minister and his henchmen seemed a small price for peace.
During the first few years after the war, Big Mama focused on the future. It was best to forget the past, everyone said, no need to re-open wounds. But, The Minister would come in his Hummer and the wounds would start to itch and she had to scratch them.
Big Mama satiated the illusion of peace with alcohol, and the second she was sober, the price for peace weighed her down.
“How about our roasted meat? And the girls, why aren’t they serving us?” The Minister asked, his voice cutting through her thoughts.
“Minister, you’re already served,” Big Mama said.
“We want their company, eeh?” The Minister said.
“They’ll come as soon as they’re ready,” Big Mama said. She thought about drinking something stronger. She needed to make herself bolder.
“That one,” he pointed at the girl serving drinks at another table. “She’s ready, isn’t she?”
“Patience, Minister, they’ll come soon,” Big Mama said.
“And the music, do something about the music, eeh, put something more, more . . .” he danced with his shoulders and put his hands up in the air as though the words were lingering there.
“Upbeat,” one of the henchmen said.
“Yes, upbeat,” The Minister said.
“How about the money for the drinks?” Big Mama asked.
“Later, I pay you later.”
“Now, you pay now. Last time you didn’t pay,” she said and stretched her right hand out until it was in front of him.
“Ah, I didn’t pay. Well, one for the war. I fought the war, for all of you,” he winked his good eye and pointed his index finger at everyone around the table.
“Minister, you did, indeed you did, but I have to buy food, pay rent, keep the business going.”
“I’ll pay you later,” he said.
They glared at each other.
~
The war that had started in a small village dragged on and engulfed the whole country, turned neighbors into enemies, tore families apart. The children became young soldiers who carried the Kalashnikovs confidently, the guns no longer weighing them down. Their faces wore hard lines and their stories became more violent, more personal. Women being raped, bottles pushed inside their vaginas. Children made to kill their parents so they could join the war, and those who couldn’t fight were left limbless. Villages were erased, farms set on fire, to flush out the rebels, the soldiers said. Big Mama pleaded with them to stop telling the war stories. They didn’t.
Truck Town became a ghost town. Big Mama’s bar that used to be awash with customers, loud music, and girls that were paid to entertain, became empty. A handful of regulars turned up, but most of them left as soon as the young soldiers came, for they’d get drunk and do random things like command whomever was in their sight to climb on a table and dance on his head, drink a bottle of beer in thirty seconds. Sometimes they’d cock their guns at someone’s head, threaten to shoot, and laugh at the look of terror in their victim’s eyes. At other times, they went outside and fired their guns into the Ugandan darkness.
These things used to frighten Big Mama, but she’d drink her waragi and pray for the war to end so the children could go back to being children, until the night the bar ran out of waragi.
That night, they arrived earlier than they normally did. As soon as they entered the bar, Big Mama knew something was wrong. It was the way Captain paced up and down the bar, the way he cocked his gun at the slightest sound, and the way he drank the waragi—too quickly and straight from the bottle. They were silent. The bar was quiet. No tales of horror. Just drinking and waiting: Big Mama for them to leave, and they, for the night to turn into day. And then, Captain asked for another bottle of waragi. One of the girls, Irene, went to get one but came back empty handed.
“Bring something else. Gin. Whiskey, anything,” Captain said.
“There’s nothing left.”
“Nothing? What do you mean nothing is left?”
Irene shrugged.
“Is that how you talk to me?”
“It’s finished,” she said.
“Let’s go look.” He grabbed her by the arm as he kicked chairs and tables out of the way and took her into the store at the back where the others pushed crates on to the floor breaking empty bottles until one of the Ninjas called out to the Captain; he had found a bottle of waragi.
“You lie,” Captain said. “Why you lie to me?” he asked holding the bottle in his hands.
“Captain.” One of the others cocked his gun.
“No,” he shook his head and walked over to Big Mama who was behind the counter. “She lied to me. Why? Let’s go,” he said and kicked her. Before Big Mama could comprehend what was happening, before she could throw herself at them, before she could fight for Irene, they had left. She never saw Irene again, and she feared to ask; she had heard them boast about the killings so many times. Her guilt was immediate.
~
Big Mama sang along to Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up,” her balance slightly off as she returned to the table with the tray of sizzling roasted meat. She continued to sing, her face breaking into smiles as she listened to The Minister listing on his fingers all the things the new government had done for its people:
“We have built schools, hospitals, roads. Everyone has electricity,” and then he stood up and shouted, “Government of Change, oye, Government of Change, oye,” his fist raised in the air, his good eye wide open, and the people in the bar that had now filled all the tables and chairs, roared along with him.
Even Big Mama joined and shouted until everyone else had stopped and all their eyes turned upon her. She burst into laughter, “Minister, you’re not serious?” she said. “Only a week ago, my auntie died of malaria because the only clinic we have in this town had no tablets. Government of Change, oye,” she shouted.
The noise slurped out of the bar. Not even the sound of breathing could be heard. Even “Get Up, Stand Up,” came to an end. The silence turned into fear paralyzing everyone in the bar, reminding them of the children with guns.
“Eeh, baby steps, this is a big country. We start in Kampala and then we come to the small towns and villages,” The Minister said.
“But then, Minister, stop talking like this government has done much apart from steal, steal, steal money. The money for the schools has been stolen. The money for the hospitals is gone. The money for the roads, vanished!”
“Big Mama,” The Minister’s face was no longer jovial. His voice steel. With his good eye half closed, his right hand moved down to his pockets and he felt for his pistol as he clenched his teeth.
“Oops, am sorry, did I misspeak?” Big Mama’s voice was high pitched. She walked over to him and held him from behind, “Our Minister,” she sang, swaying from her right foot to her left, “doesn’t like to hear anything bad about the corrupt government. Our Minister, he used to be Small Boy…”
The Minister turned his head around and faced her for a second and then straightened himself in his chair. He picked a piece of meat and threw it into his mouth. It burned his tongue. He spit it into his hands, blew on it, threw it back in his mouth and started to chew.
“Let’s eat,” he said, “this one is drunk.”
Everyone released their breath and Bob Marley’s “Africa Unite” started to play.
“Big Mama,” The Minister called as she walked away. He waited for her to turn towards him and said, “I want the girls to serve me.”
Big Mama slowly walked back and stood in front of him. “They’re not going to serve you tonight,” she said. “They’re busy, busy, busy.”
The Minister leapt to his feet, slammed the table sending the food and glasses flying and ending up on the clothes and shocked faces of the people seated around the table. In one step, he was at the next table. He grabbed a girl pouring drinks for a group of young women, dragged her and stopped in front of Big Mama, his pistol on the girl’s temple. The henchmen, following their leader, raised their Kalashnikovs.
Big Mama stared at him, but all she saw was the vision of Irene as she was hauled out of the bar. She thought about all the things she could have done to stop him from taking her away and remembered the many ways she had thought about avenging her.
“Oh no,” she said. “The Minister is angry again. What’s the matter this time? Oops, The Minister doesn’t like questions. What’s The Minister going to do now? Kill again?”
“Big Mama…”
“Yes, Minister, did I misspeak again?”
The Minister let go of the girl and pointed his pistol at Big Mama.
“You should never disrespect me,” he said and pushed her down. “I didn’t fight for this country to be belittled by the likes of you.” He yanked her up and made her kneel in front of him.
Big Mama knelt, her back straight. The pistol in her face sobered her. Her heart pounded fast, and she closed her eyes tightly as though that would deflect the impact of the bullet. She had survived the war, and now she was going to die a senseless death. She could apologize, ask the girls to serve him and his henchmen, and perhaps everything would go back to normal. Except, she knew it wouldn’t, it couldn’t. During the war, she was frightened. One girl could disappear so others could live. Big Mama wanted to live but instead of living, she was dying slowly. If only she could tell them that she never asked anyone to fight for her, to destroy her life. If only. They chose to pick up guns, and now they were carrying on as though that was justification for continuing the torture. She heard the gun click and held her breath and thought about death, and visualized a long road of light and blood, and felt Irene’s mercy.
Ruth Mukwana is a fiction writer from Uganda. She is currently working for the United Nations on humanitarian affairs in New York. She’s a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars (MFA) and holds a Bachelors degree in Law from Makerere University. Her short stories have appeared in Solstice Magazine and Black Warriors Review.
“The Minister” first appeared in CONSEQUENCE magazine.