Doing Dangerously Well (37 page)

“No. I know everyone in this department. Are you sure that’s her name? There’s Brenda Gibbons—”

“Of course I know her name. I’m her sister!”

“Pardon? I’d advise you to—”

“Yeah? Well, why don’t you send it to committee?”

“I don’t have to listen to—”

“I’d be sure to get a memo within five years!”

Panicking, Mary slammed down the phone, cracking its plastic cover. She could not figure out how Barbara had managed to get fired so quickly. Nor could she figure out why she had not told their parents of such an everyday occurrence in her life. She needed to call her sister right away: who knew where she had left the blueprints?

Mary typed “Barbara Glass” into a search engine. Within an instant, Barbara’s name appeared under a website for an NGO called Drop of Life. She scrolled down, surprised that she had managed to find another job so quickly. Mary froze. Water activists! In a frenzy, she double-clicked on Barbara’s name. A page blinked open.

Confronting her—an apparition of excess made flesh: her sister, Barbara. She wore a low-cut shirt out of which bulged a surplus of cleavage. The lunatic sported a massive turban under which dangled earrings the size of chandeliers. Her eyes radiating sexual desperation, a fleshy smile of self-approbation on her face, she held her head tilted to one side in her long-suffering
therapeutic posture. Mary looked closer. Yes, she had a crimson dot on her forehead.

Did the brain that hid behind the dot—fully concealed, given its minute size—have any knowledge of the African Water Warriors? How much information did its sluggish neurons carry?

Mary’s pared down life form almost shut down from the shock, her low pulse rate struggling for tenure. She had no idea what to do. As the minutes passed, her fear mounted: this problem presented the most serious challenge to her career yet.

From its neo-classical architecture to the National Mall to the arboretum, Kolo loved the presidential complex. It felt like home. Built as a copy of the Capitol Building, like its counterpart in Washington DC, it implied rule by the people through visual hints of Athenian democracy. It suggested a structure that had never existed, simply a frothy concept of what a classical monument might resemble, sprinkled with other assorted designs from Europe. In a final irony, the pagan monolith under which it nestled symbolized theocracy—the invincibility of the complex’s anointed commander.

As president, he owned the landscape, from the immense granite outcrop of Aso Rock to the river that, by some quirk of fate, served as his greatest protection: a moat that cut off access to his villa and the three arms of government in times of danger.

This residence he intended to keep at all costs.

The minister for the environment arrived, only a little late. “How are you today, sir?”

“Surviving. And yourself?”

“Dangerously well, yes, sir, dangerously well.”

Strange expression. Smiling up at him, Kolo picked his nails under his desk.

“The country seems very peaceful at the moment, sir,” the minister beamed. “All due to your great guidance.”

Kolo gawked at the fool. “Do you watch TV? Read newspapers?”

“Yes. I enjoy very much that form of entertainment, sir.”

“Then you might have noticed the increase in riots, coalitions being formed against water privatization, violent outbursts as a result of the resettlement for the dam?”

“The misappropriations? Well, who asked them to live there?”

“Misappropriations? I think you mean resettlement.”

The minister stared at Kolo, his face blank with incomprehension. “Have we resettled them?”

“It’s certainly not misappropriation! It’s appropriation at most. For the good of the country.”

The minister frowned, trying to fathom how this new word added any value to his vocabulary. “Anyway, it’s less than one million people. And they’re mostly villagers. Who are these illiterates to worry about misappropriation? Where are their papers?”

“You mean, the unfortunate displacement. Good question about their papers. Not a land tenancy agreement in sight. Nothing in writing—apparently they think oral singsongs carry legal weight. All ancestral land. How convenient. We could all claim ancestral rights. I’ll claim Lagos.”

The minister hee-hawed. “I’ll claim Nigeria. I’ll start as president.”

Kolo attempted a smile but it stuck before full execution.

The minister continued, oblivious. “Who has a right to land without paper? If they don’t like buying property, they should be hunter-gatherers. It’s not such a bad lifestyle.”

“Indeed.”

“In my village, of course, we do have ancestral rights, but it’s well documented orally. If anyone so much as dared …”

“Thank you, minister.” Kolo waved his confidant away, exhausted by his imbecility.

He turned to business and picked up his phone. “Inspector? This is the president.”

“President of … ?” the inspector searched.

“The country, you idiot!”

The Inspector General of Police responded immediately to the red alert. “Ah, President Kolo. This is a great, great honour for a man of my humble position.”

Fed up with flattery—to a degree—Kolo grew impatient. “What about the assassins? Where are they? It’s been two months! And they let Jegede bomb TransAqua?”

“They asked me if you still want to terminate him—a ruined wreck like that.”

Kolo knew the inspector general was lying. No doubt, he had lost his assassins. “Ah! I didn’t realize they had been promoted.”

“Pardon, sir?”

“So they are now your strategic advisors?”

“No, sir!”

“Then get them to execute Jegede!” he shouted. “Now!”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if they don’t, execute them!”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if you don’t, you can arrange your own execution!”

“Yes, sir. Immediately!” A short pause. “Pardon, sir?”

Kolo slammed down the phone.

“H
ey, Barbie. I’m arranging a trip to celebrate the parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary. But you don’t need to come.”

Barbara was loath to undergo the torture of an entire vacation with Mary and the admiring ancestors, but since her presence was not required, she obviously had to attend. “Well, when are they going? I could be in the country, who knows? Might even be free.”

“I doubt it. It’s all arranged for the end of September. We’re off to Banff.”

“Banff? In Canada?” How ironic that Mary had chosen Barbara’s secret domicile!

“Yep. Initially I suggested Ottawa, but they nixed that. Nothing there.”

“I’m sure you’d find—”

“I’m paying for it all, but I told them you probably wouldn’t be interested.”

What planets were aligning for such good fortune? A freebie, no doubt at one of those old Canadian Pacific castles! She could arrange an itinerary of spa treatments in order to spend the least time possible with the family. And more importantly, perhaps she could obtain information about the explosions. Since the tragedy, she had been unable to reach Wise Water directly, but Aminah had assured her it had been an accident. Femi’s life was now in great danger, so Barbara would have to make this ultimate sacrifice to discover what guise any threat to him might take. She girded herself for the taxing assignment.

“End of September? What a coincidence! I’ll be back from Kenya by then. Yep, I can come.”

As Barbara had predicted, the family stayed at the Banff Springs Hotel, a magnificent bastion of human ingenuity that competed with the colossal reaches of the surrounding Rocky Mountains. In the morning, they gathered in the castle’s sumptuous lounge before embarking on a survey of the surrounding area. Mary’s shrink-wrapped body pranced in front of them, a smile of triumph anchoring itself to her sparse features. Barbara felt a powerful punch of envy, a sense of her pecuniary shortcomings and physical overcompensations.

After a short drive and trek, they stood at the foot of a gargantuan megalith that vaulted past the tree line into a soaring sky, a raging monomaniac that had punched its way upwards through the earth. The parents took a few pictures. Then they looked at it.

“How beautiful! Absolutely massive!” Mother exclaimed.

“Couldn’t build on it if you tried,” Father added.

The parents’ necks craned upwards for a few moments and then, simultaneously, tilted down again to the horizontal and panned over to Mary for the next exhibit.

With this small action, it occurred to Barbara that her sister had made a critical error of judgement. The repetitiveness of the natural world, its overpowering immensity, the bald insolence of a back turned away from human hand, would eventually strike her parents as both menacing and monotonous. They craved Culture.

Barbara took full advantage of Mary’s predicament. “There’s a famous lake near here, right, Mary?”

“A lake? How interesting!” A fat paw pushed an errant piece of hair behind Mother’s ear and patted it back gently.

With Mary pinioned into silent fury, they drove to Lake Louise, a glacier-fed vessel bearing waters of phosphorescent turquoise.

“Just like a postcard!” The parents sighed in appreciation, taking a long breath. Then they looked back at Mary for the next attraction.

She hesitated. “There’s a path along it. We can walk the length of the lake.”

“Wonderful idea!” Father braced himself for an excursion. “Fresh air. Exercise. Good girl.”

“And what’s at the end?” Barbara asked innocently.

Mother tilted an ear towards Mary.

Faltering, Mary hesitated. “Uh, well, nothing. We, um, we walk back.”

Both parents’ eyebrows raised at the same time to the same height.

“Or,” Mary ventured, “we could see Emerald Lake.”

“Sounds fascinating,” Mother beamed. “What’s that?”

“It’s a lake,” Barbara interrupted. “It’s a different colour.” She leaned in towards them to further elucidate. “It’s emerald.”

The parents looked at each other, the horror of the holiday suddenly dawning on them.

“Any antique shops?” Mother enquired.

“Interesting architecture? Bridges?” Father added.

“It’s the antiquity, architecture and engineering miracle of Mother Nature herself.” Barbara swept a balletic arm around the panorama of Lake Louise.

As the tips of Barbara’s fingers deliberately entered her sister’s field of vision, rage curdled within Mary. Nevertheless, she quickly improvised. “We can see how the rental car’s nav system compares to yours. I believe it shows footage of surrounding attractions.”

The parents perked up, walked at a clip to the car and adjusted the nav system’s settings. “Oooh! Well, look at that. Stunning architecture!” They watched the lambent images of the Chateau Lake Louise, the hotel in whose car park they sat.

“What would you say that is? Limestone? Granite? Some local rock?” Mother opined.

“They certainly knew how to build in those days. No expense spared.” Father stared at the miracle of architecture on the rectangular screen.

“Well, off we go,” Mother backed out of the parking lot, reluctantly removing her eyes from the nav system. “Heads down, girls!”

“Mary …” Barbara’s low crouch muffled her speech. “I heard some group bombed your thingy in Nigeria. Water Wipes, Why Water, some name like that. Know them? Must be quite a hit, huh? What’r’ you planning to do?”

Mary’s innards grew taut. Did she mean Water Warriors or Wise Water? “Probably kill them. How should I know? Nothing to do with us. What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. Just making conversation, that’s all.”

“Is the Dam Commission interested? What do they think, Barbie?”

“Well, obviously, they think that Fem—uh, Jegede just made a mistake. They’ve told him off. He says he won’t do it again. So maybe TransAqua should, you know, let it go.”

Mary’s clenched guts relaxed now that she knew Barbara had no information about the AWW debacle. “By the way,” she said, straightening from her duck, “it’s intriguing how much you know about the Dam Commission’s advice. I saw Meyer the other day.”

“Who?” Barbara queried, straightening her Vietnamese tunic.

“Your boss.”

Barbara thought she recognized the name. She fished around for it. “Oh, Herm!”

Mother looked over a precipitous drop as she drove. “You call your boss by his first name?” A small smile played on her lips. “Well, I never.”

“That’s the modern way, my dear,” Father said, leaning back to help his wife negotiate the narrow road. “First names and T-shirts.”

Mary continued, “Strangest thing. He’d never heard of Barbara. No idea who she was.” Her little grey teeth clenched in a thin smile. Barbara imagined wrapping her strand of pearls around Mary’s thin neck and choking her. Then selling the pearls.

“So, Barbara,” Father said, “are we or are we not allowed to tell our friends about your job?”

“Isn’t there some way to change to a less secretive post?” Mother asked in a plaintive wail. “This puts us in a very awkward position, you know, dear.”

“Well, it puts Barbara in an awkward position too,” Mary piped up. “You see, she doesn’t work for UNEP at all!”