The Mission Song (21 page)

Because the People’s Paradise is sure as hell coming to get
you
!

Now Philip too is laughing and shaking his head in wonder as he rings his handbell for the next recess. But it’s Tabizi who commands my surreptitious attention. His face is a mask of ill-concealed fury. His pitch-black eyes, peering from the cover of heavy eyelids, are targeted like twin gun barrels at Haj’s forehead, reminding me that there is a class of Arab who holds his sub-Saharan brother in unalterable contempt.

11

Where the hell are they, Sam? I’m getting a loud silence.

I’m checking, dear. Be patient
.

I try to be patient. Unintelligible garble while Sam’s voice consults Anton’s, then Philip’s.

We’ve found Franco.

Where?

In the royal apartments. Having a knees-up with the Mwangaza
.

Go there? I enquire too eagerly.

On no account thank you, Brian. They’ll do very nicely without you
.

Over my headset I pick up Haj’s crocs slapping down the walkway, accompanied by a second pair of footsteps which I tentatively assign to Dieudonné. Sam immediately confirms the identification: watchers report that Haj has grabbed Dieudonné by the elbow and is literally leading him up the garden path. Better still, Haj has put a finger to his lips, commanding Dieudonné’s silence until they are clear of the house. My spirits soar. There is no finer music to your part-time sound-thief’s ear than: ‘Let’s go somewhere where we can’t be overheard,’ or ‘Wait where you are while I get to a public phone box.’

Yet even in my excitement I feel a surge of sympathy for Dieudonné who, having been tugged in one direction by Maxie’s grand design, is now being tugged in the other by the recalcitrant Haj.

The two men have reached the gazebo steps and started climbing. As they climb Haj starts to dance. And as he dances he begins speaking in bursts: a rap of the crocs, a rap of speech. Sound-thieves hear like the blind. But sometimes they also see like the blind, which is what I’m doing now: bright and clear as day in my blind man’s eye. I see Haj’s slime-green crocs skimming the stone steps, slappety-whack, slappety-whack. I see his lacquered forelock bucking, his slender body arched backwards, hands trailing like silk scarves against the clear blue sky while he keeps his voice below the level of his slapping crocs. If his body is a wild man’s, his voice is a steady man’s, and the more quietly he talks, the more din he makes with his feet, and the more he flings his head around in the course of a single sentence as he feeds the mikes, one garbled morsel down each little throat.

What language is he speaking? His native Shi which Dieudonné also happens to speak. So what he’s doing—or thinks he’s doing—with a little improvisation, and a dash of French where he needs it—he’s using a language that nobody overhearing them could possibly understand—except I can.

So I’m coming after him. I’m right in there with them. I’m coming after him so hard that when I press my eyes tight shut I can see him with my virtual eye. When Haj skips away, and Dieudonné trudges after him, spluttering his half cough, Salvo the top interpreter is there beside them with his headphones and his notepad. When Haj skips back, Dieudonné stands motionless—and so do I. Up another step, and Haj leaps onto the grass, and so do I. And Haj knows I’m there. I know he knows. He’s playing Grandmother’s Footsteps with me, and I’m playing them with him. He’s leading the
zebra
a proper dance, and the
zebra
is returning the compliment, up and down the steps and all around.

What he can’t know is how primitive our sound system is. He’s modern man and I don’t mind betting he’s a techno-freak into the bargain. He thinks we’ve got the whole range of the Chat Room’s state-of-the-art toys: directional, laser, satellite, you name it, but we haven’t. And this isn’t the Chat Room, Haj. And Spider’s mikes are static, even if you and I and Dieudonné aren’t. And Spider’s system is good old-fashioned closed cable with no spillage and this
zebra
loves it.

It’s one on one. It’s Haj versus Salvo,
mano a mano
, with Dieudonné as the innocent bystander. It’s Haj’s Shi and Haj’s tap-dancing and Haj’s lunging and ducking versus Salvo’s thieving ears. Haj’s crocs are rapping like clogs on cobble. He’s pirouetting, his voice goes up and down and all around, a bit of Shi, a bit of Kinyarwanda, then a bit of French argot to complicate the mix. I’m stealing sound from three separate mikes and three separate languages in one sentence and reception is as chaotic as the man. I’m dancing too, if only in my head. I’m up there on the stone steps duelling sabre to sabre with Haj, and every time he lets me catch my breath I’m passing hastily compressed renderings up the wire to Sam while my left hand pins down my notepad and the pencil in my right hand skips across the page to Haj’s tune.

No need to shout, Brian dear. We’re hearing you very nicely
.

The take is nine minutes long, which is two-thirds of the recess. The
zebra
will never steal better sound in his life.

Haj: How sick are you anyway? (
staccato of crocs, up a couple of steps, down three, stop. Abrupt silence
) Very sick? (
No answer. Another staccato. Returns
) Wives too? Kids? (
Is Dieudonné nodding? Apparently yes
) Holy shit. How long have you got? (
No answer
) Know where you picked it up?

Dieudonné: From a girl. What do you think?

Haj: When?

Dieudonné: Ninety-eight.

Haj: The
war
of ninety-eight?

Dieudonné: What else?

Haj: Fighting against the
Rwandans
? (
another apparent nod
) You were fighting
Rwandans
and fucking for the one true Democratic Republic of Congo? Holy Jesus! Has anyone thanked you yet?

Dieudonné: For catching the plague?

Haj: For fighting another useless war, man. (
dancing up and down the steps
) Shit. Damn. (
more low-key expletives
) This no-name Syndicate wants your arse, know that? (
garbled
) The Banyamulenge have got the best warriors, discipline, motivation, the best minerals . . . gold and coltan on the plateau . . . and you don’t even mine them, you love your fucking cows too much! . . .

Dieudonné: (
through his coughs, dead calm
) Then we shall dictate terms. We shall go to the Mwangaza and say: first you must give us all you have promised, or we will not fight for you. We will fight against you. We will say that.

Haj: The
Mwangaza
? You think the Mwangaza is running this thing? What a hero
he
is! What—a—world-class—enlightener! . . . What a selfless friend of the
poor
! That guy owns the poorest ten-million-dollar villa in Spain you ever saw. Ask my dad . . . plasma television screens in every toilet . . . (
violent tattoo of crocs, speech very garbled, then clears. Softly, in counterpoint to din that preceded it
) Dieudonné. Pay attention to me. You’re a good man. I love you.

Dieudonné: (
unintelligible
)

Haj: You will not die. I do
not
want you to die. Okay? Deal? Not you, not the Banyamulenge. Not again. Not of war, not of hunger, not of after-war, not of the plague. If you’ve got to die at all, die of beer. Promise?

Dieudonné: (
grim laugh
) Beer and anti-retrovirals.

Haj: I mean, I do not want
any
fucker to die
anywhere
in the Congo for a very long time, except quietly and peacefully, of
beer
. You’re sweating like a whore. Sit down.

Reception improves. Anton reports via Sam that Dieudonné has settled on a stone bench under a beech tree beneath the gazebo. Haj is jiggling round him in a radius of eight to ten feet. But I am there beside them.

Haj: . . . the Rwandans are stronger than we are, know that? . . . stronger than the . . . Banyamulenge, stronger than the Mai Mai knuckle-draggers (
making ape noises
) . . . stronger than the whole of . . . Kivu put together . . . Okay? Admit it.

Dieudonné: It is possible.

Haj: It’s a fucking certainty and you know it. Listen to me (
returns to Dieudonné and speaks intensely close to his ear—twenty-twenty reception, presumably from mike in overhead branches of beech tree
) . . . I love my father. I’m an African. I honour him. You got a father still? . . . Okay, so that means you honour his spirit. You talk to his spirit, you obey his spirit, you’re guided by it. Mine’s alive, okay? Three wives and all the hookers he can eat. Owns a slice of Goma and fifty-one per cent of me, and the Rwandans are stealing his business, or he thinks they are.

Anton reports via Sam that Haj keeps darting behind the beech tree and reappearing. The in-and-out reception confirms.

Haj: Couple of months ago he calls me in, okay? . . . solemn occasion,
humph, humph
. . . office, not home . . . doesn’t want his . . . wives listening at the fucking keyhole . . . tells me about this great New Deal for Kivu he’s involved in, how his old pal the Mwangaza is going to get in ahead of elections which are a recipe for civil war, throw out everybody he doesn’t like and make everybody he likes rich, and the People rich too, because he’s got this fine philanthropic Syndicate behind him, and they’ve got all this money, and these good intentions, and the guns, and the ammunition. Sounds great, I tell him. Sounds just like King Leopold when
he
came to Congo. Which naturally drove him ape. So I wait till he cools down, which is next day . . . (
breaks up, returns
) . . . meantime something bad. Really bad . . . I consult some very evil people I know . . . in Kinshasa . . . guys my dad would kill me for knowing, guys it pays to be polite to if you don’t want to wake up dead in the morning . . . (
very garbled now
) . . . what they told me, these guys? . . . under a pledge of total secrecy which I am now dishonouring? Kinshasa is part of the deal. Kinshasa has a piece of the action . . . the absolute worst piece . . .

Perfect sound. Sam advises that Haj and Dieudonné are sitting side by side on the bench with a mike six feet above them and no breeze to disturb it.

Haj: So I go back to my dad and I say to him: Father, I love you and I am grateful that you paid for me to grow a fucking brain, and I respect your good motives regarding the Mwangaza and the Eastern Congo. Therefore allow me to tell you that on the basis of my professional expertise as a problem-solver that you are a very serious arsehole on two counts. You and the Mwangaza have in my estimation undersold yourselves to this no-balls Syndicate by approximately one thousand per cent. Count Two, and forgive my impertinence, but who needs another fucking war? You and I are totally dependent on Rwanda for our trade. They send our goods out into the world for us. For everybody except the Congolese, this would be the basis of a profitable and friendly trading partnership. It would not be a reason for slaughtering each other’s wives and children, or installing a geriatric, untried leader who, however much you love him, is pledged to kicking everything that smells of Rwanda out of Congo. Do I tell him about my bad friends in Kinshasa? Do I fuck. But I do tell him about my good friend Marius, a fat Dutch fucker I happened to study with in Paris.

Reception temporarily ceases. Sam’s team reports the couple making slow progress over grass on the other side of the gazebo. Reception very poor.

Haj: . . . forty years old . . . (
two seconds garbled
) . . . mountain of institutional money . . . African[?] vice president of . . . (
seven seconds garbled
) . . . So I told my dad . . . (
four seconds garbled
) listened to me . . . told me I was the biggest failure of his life . . . disgrace to our ancestors . . . then asked me where could he find this Marius so that he could . . . tell him how sealing the Rwandan border with Congo was the only sane solution to the world’s problems, which is how my dad talks when he doesn’t want you to know he’s changing his mind.

Shriek of metal, sigh of foam cushions, clarity restored. Sam reports that the two men are seated in a wind shelter looking out to sea. Haj’s voice is urgent, almost reckless.

Haj: So my dad gets in his plane and goes to see Marius in Nairobi. Luc likes Nairobi. Knows a great hooker there. And he likes Marius. Smokes a couple of cigars with him. And Marius likes Luc. And Marius tells him what an arsehole he is. ‘You are everything your pissant of a son says you are. A wise, fine man. And you and your Mwangaza want to throw the Rwandans out of Kivu so that they can no longer exploit you, which is a great idea except for one thing. Are you seriously suggesting they won’t come and kick the living
shit
out of you, pay back with interest what you took away from them? Isn’t that what they do every time? So why not be
really
smart and do the unthinkable for once in your life? Instead of throwing the Rwandans out, look at yourself in the mirror, put on your biggest smile, and act like you love them? You’re in business with them whether you like it or not, so try liking it. Then maybe my company will stake you or buy you out, and we’ll get some bright young guys like your pissant son on board, make sweet with Kinshasa, and instead of three million people dying we’ll get some peaceful coexistence going.’

Dieudonné: (
after long thought
) Is your father in alliance with this man?

Haj: He’s Luc, for fuck’s sake. Best poker player in Goma. But you know what? The fat Dutch fucker was right. Because when the Rwandans
do
come back, who are they going to bring with them? The whole fucking catastrophe. Like last time round, but worse. The Angolans, the Zimbabweans and anybody else who hates our guts and wants what we’ve got. And when that happens, forget the peace process, forget international pressure, forget the elections, because you poor Banyamulenge bastards are going to die like flies, which is what you do best. But not me. I’ll be back in Paris, laughing my head off.