How to Rob a Bank
Circa Dar es Salaam 1997
The boys were very glum and looked at me with hope but little expectation. The boat was in the customs yard well guarded by representatives of the scavenging dogs. We could see it, all shiny and just the thing for a customs auction. The invoices were out but the practitioners of poverty would not pay us until they were ready, two weeks, maybe a month and begging them would only make those clerks grin with pleasure. Every day, every hour I should think, the port charges increased.
I asked around, we did a tally. Every one said "Hamna kabisa". Nothing at all. I thought and dismissed those thoughts. Michael you cannot do that. You can.
I said "We have three bread rolls and a fish. We will have to rob a bank"
The Arab girls made our deposit at the finance house, Savings and Finance, a good name for the purpose. Mr. Gopalkrishnan was pleased and enjoyed the flirtatious chat from behind the veils. I sat in the cashiers hall, a poky place, where the customers came quickly in and out making deposits and more importantly making big cash withdrawals. Mr. G was turning over his money without too much thought for systems.
On the day I arrived first and went without passing the cashier to the foreign exchange department in the upstairs office.
"I need to make a foreign transfer."
"If you have the money you can send it anywhere you want, just fill in the form and sign" He was a pasty looking clerk with money dirtied hands
I sat by the window, the street below was busy with commerce. The Arab Girl was coming now, skinny and frail unnoticed as she slipped with practiced ease through the jostling men whose hands reached out to grope but missed as she slid by like the striped fish I see under this water here. Her veils, which today covered all her face but for the cold dark eyes, were a flamboyant yellow. If you were looking for it that colour could pick her out in the densest crowd. I looked away from the window and concentrated on the form and the foreign exchange cashier looking at me. Was he suspicious? I took my time. He checked it, very slowly, held it up to the light, went out to check the balance in the account and said
"Its fine"
The telex machine chattered, the money flew. In the down stairs cashiers office the Arab girl had entered, they knew her by voice, sharp, a bit like a crow,
"I come from Mikey"
She filled a form , the cashier gave it hardly a glance, he had checked the balance but moments before. She took the cash. From the upstairs window I saw a flash of yellow passing through the streets, Indira Ghandi St, into an old unnoticed taxi.
"Thanks" I said "be seeing you around"
We had drawn our own money, that’s true, but we had drawn it twice, exactly double. Our fish had become two, our rolls had become six and there was just enough to do the thing.
At the dock Frank, Eddie, Patrick and the others waited. The taxi arrived, the Arab girl held out the package
'Patrick, chakua hapa, na fanya kazi yako haraka sana".
Sharp, orders, no movement of the veils.
Patrick is big, lumbering, sinister, bent as can be, a former employee he knew his way around the sd department once he had the lucre. Two hours later the boat slid out the gate, down Ocean Road, across Selander to beyond Tenki Mbovu to another yard that we controlled ourselves.
Back home Phil said
"How did you manage that. You did not really rob a bank surely"
I waited by the phone.
Mr.Gopalkrishnan's systems were poor or maybe he was just stunned for it was forty eight hours before he rang me, incandescent understandably. No greetings, no everlasting how are youse this morning, just:
"You bloody bastard respectable Englishman robbed the fucking bank"
"Gopal, old boy, I would not put it quite like that. I would call it a temporary unuathorised loan"
'I will put you in the jail" said Gopal.
And so he did but not for long and of that I have already written. The practitioners of poverty soon paid us and funds flowed again and the Arab girl went back to pay Gopal back his cash and the interest (he was very quick to add) and all was smiles again.
"You must sort out these systems Gopal" I said
The boys went about their business, the Arab girl changed the colour of her veils and I realised another hunk of me had been burnt out. Perhaps it was around then that the nightmares started. I felt guilty but justified.
"Some things in life are very unfortunate but necessary" I had said to Gopal by way of mitigation.
It is the time the fruit of the African almond tree is ripe. They are the favourite food of our bats that come in multitudes to feast each night. They zoom about the restaurant, the bar and under the trees, swooping low and high but never hitting anyone or anything, they are the very best of top gun bats. Popo. In the morning the debris of their feasting is left outside Room 7 and 8, and even more outside of 9 and 10.
Hilali does not like these bats, they leave a mess and if it was up to him he would chop down these almond trees.
The boys were very glum and looked at me with hope but little expectation. The boat was in the customs yard well guarded by representatives of the scavenging dogs. We could see it, all shiny and just the thing for a customs auction. The invoices were out but the practitioners of poverty would not pay us until they were ready, two weeks, maybe a month and begging them would only make those clerks grin with pleasure. Every day, every hour I should think, the port charges increased.
I asked around, we did a tally. Every one said "Hamna kabisa". Nothing at all. I thought and dismissed those thoughts. Michael you cannot do that. You can.
I said "We have three bread rolls and a fish. We will have to rob a bank"
The Arab girls made our deposit at the finance house, Savings and Finance, a good name for the purpose. Mr. Gopalkrishnan was pleased and enjoyed the flirtatious chat from behind the veils. I sat in the cashiers hall, a poky place, where the customers came quickly in and out making deposits and more importantly making big cash withdrawals. Mr. G was turning over his money without too much thought for systems.
On the day I arrived first and went without passing the cashier to the foreign exchange department in the upstairs office.
"I need to make a foreign transfer."
"If you have the money you can send it anywhere you want, just fill in the form and sign" He was a pasty looking clerk with money dirtied hands
I sat by the window, the street below was busy with commerce. The Arab Girl was coming now, skinny and frail unnoticed as she slipped with practiced ease through the jostling men whose hands reached out to grope but missed as she slid by like the striped fish I see under this water here. Her veils, which today covered all her face but for the cold dark eyes, were a flamboyant yellow. If you were looking for it that colour could pick her out in the densest crowd. I looked away from the window and concentrated on the form and the foreign exchange cashier looking at me. Was he suspicious? I took my time. He checked it, very slowly, held it up to the light, went out to check the balance in the account and said
"Its fine"
The telex machine chattered, the money flew. In the down stairs cashiers office the Arab girl had entered, they knew her by voice, sharp, a bit like a crow,
"I come from Mikey"
She filled a form , the cashier gave it hardly a glance, he had checked the balance but moments before. She took the cash. From the upstairs window I saw a flash of yellow passing through the streets, Indira Ghandi St, into an old unnoticed taxi.
"Thanks" I said "be seeing you around"
We had drawn our own money, that’s true, but we had drawn it twice, exactly double. Our fish had become two, our rolls had become six and there was just enough to do the thing.
At the dock Frank, Eddie, Patrick and the others waited. The taxi arrived, the Arab girl held out the package
'Patrick, chakua hapa, na fanya kazi yako haraka sana".
Sharp, orders, no movement of the veils.
Patrick is big, lumbering, sinister, bent as can be, a former employee he knew his way around the sd department once he had the lucre. Two hours later the boat slid out the gate, down Ocean Road, across Selander to beyond Tenki Mbovu to another yard that we controlled ourselves.
Back home Phil said
"How did you manage that. You did not really rob a bank surely"
I waited by the phone.
Mr.Gopalkrishnan's systems were poor or maybe he was just stunned for it was forty eight hours before he rang me, incandescent understandably. No greetings, no everlasting how are youse this morning, just:
"You bloody bastard respectable Englishman robbed the fucking bank"
"Gopal, old boy, I would not put it quite like that. I would call it a temporary unuathorised loan"
'I will put you in the jail" said Gopal.
And so he did but not for long and of that I have already written. The practitioners of poverty soon paid us and funds flowed again and the Arab girl went back to pay Gopal back his cash and the interest (he was very quick to add) and all was smiles again.
"You must sort out these systems Gopal" I said
The boys went about their business, the Arab girl changed the colour of her veils and I realised another hunk of me had been burnt out. Perhaps it was around then that the nightmares started. I felt guilty but justified.
"Some things in life are very unfortunate but necessary" I had said to Gopal by way of mitigation.
It is the time the fruit of the African almond tree is ripe. They are the favourite food of our bats that come in multitudes to feast each night. They zoom about the restaurant, the bar and under the trees, swooping low and high but never hitting anyone or anything, they are the very best of top gun bats. Popo. In the morning the debris of their feasting is left outside Room 7 and 8, and even more outside of 9 and 10.
Hilali does not like these bats, they leave a mess and if it was up to him he would chop down these almond trees.
posted by Michael | 11:14 am
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