Stringer (20 page)

For the first time we received evidence that the militias were indeed moving—that the proximity of recent attacks had been no coincidence. The radio announced that General Mathieu Ngudjolo, leader of the Congolese Revolutionary Movement, a militia of about ten thousand fighters, heavily armed, was approaching some key electoral sites in Bunia's sector. Of course, this alone did not make world news. We had to wait for something to happen.

It was the day I began to take the malaria tablets. I hadn't trusted the doctor's diagnosis, because I felt my condition had not been growing worse. Then on the weekend I felt ill again, and I decided to take the pills as a precaution. They couldn't do harm. Four pills, taken all at once, for three days in succession. I lay under the blanket and clutched my pillow, feeling the atmosphere infuse with darkness. A sharp banging disturbed me. Naro had stormed into the room; I hadn't heard him knock. He wore a broad smile and was dressed to go out. “I have arranged the evening,” he said. “We will meet some of your people.”

“I'm not feeling great.”

“You'll feel fine after a drink.”

“The doctor told me to take rest. I'm on medication.”

“For what?”

“Malaria.”

“You don't look like you have malaria. Come, come. The doctors here call everything malaria, and the next day I'm always hale and hearty.”

“I don't know. You go ahead without me.”

“But I already told them you were coming. Listen to me, they are representing big businesspeople, good contacts to have in Bunia. They are also from your part of India. Maybe they will help you.”

Naro didn't let up. He waited by my bed and then outside the door while I changed. His intrusion put me in a bad mood; and in retrospect I should have told him off. Once I had gotten out of bed, though, I moved more easily. “Hurry up or we'll be late.”

“Shut up, man, I have malaria.”

Was I tired or just dejected? Stepping out could be pleasant, I thought. But as soon as we reached the bar I felt I should have stayed at the convent.

They were three Tamil brothers—boys, really—gaunt and mustache. Their shirts were collared, in checks and stripes. Their jeans were light blue, and seemed of thick cotton. Originally from Pondicherry, the Tamils had learned to trade in Uganda, and had crossed over to Bunia less than a year earlier. They were unruly from the start: slapping backs, calling to the girls, loudly jeering. Naro raised his volume, easily keeping up. He summoned a garçon to our table. The Tamils ordered double and triple shots. It was announced that no one should drink beer. I asked for water. The conversation went low; I saw the exchange of glances. Naro ended the awkwardness with a lewd comment. The Tamils laughed. For the next hour I sat in Naro's shadow, content to be silent. The boys stared at the bar girls, some of whom had appeared at the counter, strutting around, flattered by the attention; they made doe eyes and batted eyelashes; some were draped over chairs. A girl rose, wearing a black cocktail dress that exposed petite shoulder blades and was backless down to the tail of her spine. She looked savage,
brut
—she was perhaps here for the beauty pageant. Men in cravats and ties loitered, eyeing her. When the garçon returned with our second round of
drinks one of the Tamils was leaning back in his chair, bending its legs. The chair buckled, and the garçon spilled some gin on him. The others laughed; the garçon looked terrified. The Tamil, who was wiping his shirt, cursed. The garçon asked if he was all right. The Tamil lost his calm. “What? You're back-talking to me?” And suddenly he started to fling his arms. The boy cowered and held up his hands.

Naro grabbed the Tamil. “Enough, man!”

I started to feel drowsy. The temperature had dropped. As I stood the plastic end of my chair scraped against gravel.

“What, man, you're going?” one of the Tamils said. “Where is he going?” The Tamil was clearly drunk. “Arre. Come on yaar. At least have a drink with us. Get him a whiskey on the rocks,” he told Naro. I indicated with a finger that he shouldn't place the order. The Tamil clicked his tongue. “What is this?
Who
do you think you are?”

Naro touched his shoulder. “Chill, okay? Chill.”

“Don't talk to me like that,” the Tamil said impatiently, pushing Naro. “
I
can't accept this. It's just not done.”

“Come on,” Naro said to me, “order something.”

“I'm not feeling well. I told you.”

Naro leaned over to me. “Man, one more drink is not going to kill you.”

“You have a cold?” the Tamil across the table yelled. He was standing and holding his glass to his nose.

“Malaria,” I said softly, looking at my bottle.

“Rubbish,” Naro countered. “He doesn't have malaria.”

I eyed Naro. The Tamil seemed pleased. “Gin and tonic, double shot!” he instructed the garçon. “And make sure the tonic has quinine.”

“Quinine!” the other Tamil shouted. “Don't you know that? It's what they give to malaria patients.” The Tamils put their arms over each other's shoulders and started to chant.
“Qui-nine! Quinine!”
The garçon left my drink on the table. I rolled it in my hands and took a sip. Bitterness filled my mouth; I pulled away. The Tamil beside me watched with wide eyes. “Come on! Cheers.”

I felt the first shiver. “I should go,” I whispered to Naro. “I'm in bad shape.”

The young Tamil blocked my path. “You can't waste alcohol!” He nodded to the others around the table, gaining their approval. “You have to finish the drink.”

“Drink,” the group chanted. “Finish the drink.”

I looked at Naro pleadingly. He set his glass on the table and tilted his head, meaning we should go. “He doesn't like us,” I heard someone say behind me.

“Thinks too much of himself.”

“Let him go, the bastard.”

Naro held my arm because I was feeling limp. At the convent I swallowed a Panadol and crashed into the blankets, smelling medicine in my mouth. I was utterly exhausted. I rubbed a palmful of Vicks over my neck and put on a buttoned-up rain jacket and scarf. Over my feet I pulled thick white socks up to the shins. Naro had left the door unlocked; it swung back and forth, letting in a draft.

My last hours in the convent were suffocating, dazed. My legs felt numb; the air seemed saturated with dust. I felt the urge to urinate. My eyes would not open; the sun shone as a uniform orange. The imagination brought fleeting relief: I dreamed of walking out my door and past a basin. Everything was a sparkling-clean white. I felt a warmth start at my loins and radiate over my body. The pungency. I called Naro. He said he would find someone who could help. Who else do you know in Bunia, he asked. “Try with Ali,” I said.

“What happened?”

Ali was hunched over the bedside table, chewing tobacco. I
remembered the alarm of being moved, the sense of helplessness as my feet slid over the rocks and as the clothes were pulled off my body. My joints hurt. I was under a soft quilt in a back room without windows.

“Relax,” he said, his smelly face close to mine. “You need to rest. Don't ask too many questions for once.”

19

I
took the medication for two more days, which passed in bouts of sleep and semiconsciousness. To this day I don't know if I had malaria—I believe it could have been that those pills had decimated my immunity.

But the illness, I felt, had protected me from some terrible fate: the room, the toilets, and then the troubles with the AP and Naro—the misfortunes had all seemed enchained, as though from a single cause, and somehow bound to my residence. I was relieved to be out of the convent and its austerity, so isolating.

Ali made sure I was cared for. The domestic, a village girl who seemed about my age, and wore faded rags, made me baby-food porridge each morning. In the afternoons I had ginger tea; before bed the tea was of lemongrass. She followed me, as a precaution, a few paces behind, when I walked slowly down the house's main corridor, bounded on one side by a wide mosquito net from the height of one's waist to the ceiling; so one could look into the yard and upon its mango tree.

The attention, excessive and relentless, soon made me uncomfortable. It made me feel a settler in the house, parasitic; I worried
about overstaying. My room, clearly for guests, with only a bed, a cupboard of bedsheets and a shin-high table, provided some peace; but the slightest noise in the corridor would disturb me. I carried a fear of intrusion. On waking I would wait by the door, listen for movement, step out only if there was silence. And the recovery hardly gave respite: once fully cured, I felt intolerably ill at ease.

Ali said the UN was trying to hide its illicit dealings in Fataki—it had not reinstated the right of civilians to fly. He did not bring it up again.

And sometimes it was he who seemed to reach out to me, uneasily; like when he relayed a piece of gossip about the domestic's sister, whose husband had stolen a quantity of money.

One evening, when it was quiet and the shop had shut early, he suggested we have dinner together. He was excited—a new satellite dish had arrived, making the Indian selection of channels accessible. We watched
Antakshari
, a musical game show in Hindi that my parents used to follow. Ali hummed the tunes. The sofas on which we sat were of liver-brown upholstery.

“Listen,” he said, chewing. “You should stay as long as you want. There is no problem. You are very quiet. And the house is very big.”

I swallowed the insufficiently chewed food, quickly taking water, and thanked him, adding that I might not need to stay. But I was grateful for his offer.

He pushed the bowl of meat toward me with the back of his hand. “Whatever. The room is there if you want.”

“Are you making accounts these days?” I tried not to sound too cheerful. But already I felt obliged, that I should be nice to him.

Ali had lately been writing for long hours, in the shop.

“They are so boring,” he said, “I find them very boring, four times a year. Why don't you do them for me?”

“Sure.” Again, my chirpiness. It was a tone I despised. I could hear my voice become shrill.

“You will mess the whole thing.”

He licked two fingers and wiped them dry, staining the napkin in orange lines. The napkin, crumpled, fell next to his plate. “But maybe you can bring me a white girl.” He gave it some thought. “A young girl maybe. Sometimes I worry about AIDS . . . Do they have AIDS?”

The TV lit up, making a brightness in the room.

“Usually they are careful,” I said, uncertainly.

“That is good. I like the UN girls, or journalists.” He sat up. “I want to do it without the condom. I never get the chance. These black girls,” he sucked on a finger, “they have infections. And they are always wearing strings. You know the line that goes between their asses? I hate to think of that string.”

He ate a little, then chuckled to himself. “You know they use a powder, up and down. ‘Clean, clean,' they tell me.” He laughed. “You know how they apply it? With a toothbrush. I tell them not to put it, but they say it is antiseptic or anti-fungus . . . It becomes white everywhere. I always make them wash, first thing. Otherwise you don't feel like touching it.” He spoke almost with pity.

The
Antakshari
contestants now sang an uplifting music. Their clothes were of embroidered silk; but the creases were too sharp, and one could see the dress had come straight from the shop—had been purchased specially for this appearance; then the singers seemed less splendid.

Ali bit on the tip of a green chili.

“White girls,” he said, “I don't really know, except from the porn. They make a lot of porn. They like sex.” There was a pause. He looked at me.

I hummed.

“In Congo you can make a nice porn business. The girls are very simple that way. If you get angry they only think they did something wrong.” Ali seemed to become excited by this. “I like
to make them scared. They look at you. You can make them do anything. I think they also like it.”

And I felt, by his talk, that he must often converse in this way.

“You have never taken a black girl,” he said.

It was evident.

“Why not? They are waiting for the young men. In Bunia you know, it is banana, the secret. Feed your girl banana fry every day. In two weeks she will become heavy, and big”—he tensed his oily, stained hand, showing how he would grab the breast, as though to hurt the girl. Then again he was calm.

The domestic came in to take our plates, and as though oblivious she leaned over the table, her shirt falling so one could see, against her black chest, her white brassiere. And I could not help but, in my mind, to undress her, to see her breasts under the lace, their largeness, their points, and then see her face anxious, desiring.

But Ali was looking over her form. The girl, silent and still bending, glanced at him, then at me. Without looking up again she collected all the plates and, the plastic rattling in her arms, left the room. I watched her behind, the quick movements of her bare feet. And I now felt that she had not been innocent, that she had deliberately dropped her shirt before my face.

“She thinks after one night you will marry her.” Ali ran his arm under his shirt and scratched his chest. “She was married, in the village. Her husband ran away.”

He was still staring at the television.

“Don't look again, even if she shows you.”

The
Antakshari
hosts introduced a young couple who were to sing a 1970s song. The orchestra began again. But the people on-screen seemed unintelligent; the hosts' low-cut dresses led the eye only to areas one did not want to imagine; the bodies seemed of loose flesh.

“These TV shows are becoming too commercial,” Ali said. “Half of it is
tamasha
. Advertisements, talking. People sing for
only twenty minutes, and they are more interested in looking like film stars. Look at their teeth. All
tamasha
.” Needless excitement.

After a while he sighed, leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “So boring, nothing to do.” And that made all the talk, the tension, the descriptions of aggressive sex, seem like restless chatter about hobbies, like gardening or collecting stamps; they were ways to keep oneself occupied, to pass the time.

The girl had however desired an end. The way in which she had offered herself: there was the realization of how the Congolese must feel they were seen. Her gesture had been unambiguous, coarse; she had applied the mood on me; she had seen me with vulgarity.

I recalled Fannie and Frida, the girls Nana had thrown at me. The desire with which they had seen me, the ugliness of their approach—it became apparent.

I wondered why Natalie came to mind. Was it because of the domestic? The feeling of frustrated desire, of a promise somehow corrupted. It seemed so. The aggression of this scene seemed to transfer easily to her memory. I had only crossed the boulevard, from one side to the other, but the people seemed so defiled. And somehow I felt infused with Ali's energy—his excitement in seeking. I had moved far from the purity and charisma of the convent, with its beatific boy attendant.

I would keep the room, freeing myself from the worry of needing to find a place and pay rent. But mindful of Ali's reputation, I made adjustments—such as using the back door to leave the house. This alley was quiet, without traffic. I didn't want people to think we were associates.

From the gate I walked left, briskly over the mud, to the first left turn, which opened to a wider road, sloping up. Here was a corner café. Its picnic chairs were full. Customers ate chickens—Bunia's food of choice, with the more expensive tilapia—with twisted legs, as though the birds had been cooked live and
had tried to shrink away from the flame. I ordered fermented milk, which came in a beer glass. And I took a seat that became available.

Across the road was a row of colonial-style houses, of the sort I now lived in with Ali, with narrow pillars on the red-oxide porches. Bunia had only these constructions; nothing had been built in ten years, perhaps twenty. Called
dukkas
, after the Indian word for shop, they had at the front a commercial space, and the owner lived either inside or on top. And today, even on this side street, the
dukkas
had a buzz about them. People emerged from one in special dress. During the days of illness I felt I had lost my bearings; I could not easily tell what was new and what was normal.

But on walking farther I realized I had missed a transformation in the city: people thronged the boulevard. Cars were parked in long rows. A new wooden stage had been erected and strewn with banners. The vice president, Kabila's main rival for the presidency, was due to fly in. His name was Jean-Pierre Bemba, and his chubby face was all over the crowd, plastered on white cotton T-shirts and blue flags.

I pushed my way into the crowd, past the men, women and families, past the circle of women doing a bend-over-forward dance. The gathering swelled as the hour of arrival approached, until people occupied the full width of the street, from near Ali's shop to the cafés. The money changers and the
kaddafis
, the men holding bottles of gasoline, were gone, but vendors were having a heyday selling lollies: mixtures of frozen milk and sugar wilting on wooden trays.

The music, the beating of the drums and the dancing grew louder, reaching a crescendo. We looked up. But Bemba was not there. The noise diminished. This constant rising and falling put everyone on edge. People tussled for space. We were parched. And it was clear that the abnormally long wait, the surges of emotion, had been deliberately orchestrated.

The crowd required agitation; Kabila was ahead in the polls; Bemba needed to create momentum: it was plausible. But the campaigns, the speeches, the T-shirts and the promises: it seemed too abstract and intellectual a contest for former warlords, who only a few years earlier had pledged to kill each other.

But in these elections Kabila seemed the man of peace—to end their feud he had named Bemba his vice president. Kabila seemed willing to bring calm to Congo, though it was unclear how much of the country he would control. A victory for Bemba, on the other hand, seemed certain to plunge Congo into new chaos. Born into a wealthy family, he was willing to take great risks to win power. During Congo's conflict he had left his mansions and servants for the forests, where he had made himself into a powerful warlord.

As one of the milk lolly vendors said to me: “Power falls from the sky in Africa only once every twenty or thirty years. Each man becomes a dictator. He will do everything in his means not to lose his chance at the presidency.”

Finally Bemba's large form moved across the platform. “Welcome, welcome,” he boomed into a microphone, grimacing. Women cheered. The waving flags caught sunlight like glitter. Bemba seemed put at ease. He began to laugh at the crowd at his feet. “I will clean up your problems in six months.” Now there was clapping. “Who do you trust? Me or that liar?” But the clapping had been too quiet—and for a moment I felt that the people had come for the free handouts, the T-shirts, money and banners of cloth.

Then the crowd gave a roar. Bemba was saying that he would prolong the war. “If I don't win the elections I will return to the bush!” he yelled, his eyes filled with rage. “We will make a new army.” Arms in the crowd rose in the air, trembling, fingers spread out. Women quickened their circle dance, hooting through their hands. Bemba scanned the frenzied people. Slowly,
he smiled. I could feel the violence in the atmosphere. The vice president had the power to incite this in the poor.

The city was continually tense after Bemba's appearance. The attacks diminished, then stopped. There was no news about the militias' movements. I became suspicious. The wait was first strange, then intolerable. One felt something was being prepared. I fell into a strange depression—again I was eating a lot. Even Ali's offer of having prostitutes over in the afternoons suddenly began to seem interesting. In an attempt to satisfy my agitations, and to avoid succumbing to Ali's degeneracy, I decided to find a way to get out of the city.

I planned a trip with an intrepid American, a middle-aged Massachusetts man whose office, next to the doctor's clinic, I had walked into one day out of curiosity. He worked for a small NGO, and seemed as eager as I was to see what was happening in the countryside. He arranged a journey on the pretext of a field inspection, and had me join. We left Bunia four days before the elections.

It was a quiet morning.

From the outset we seemed alone, the only moving object in the landscape.

Our first stop was about twenty miles from Bunia, in a field with goats. A few men stood around, under the occasional stooping acacia. These were former fighters who, under a special program, were being convinced to return to life as civilians. But the program was failing: many of them were returning to the militias they had previously deserted.

They looked wary, if fatigued, and very black from working outdoors. The American left me to talk to a different group—but we constantly kept an eye on each other; one never knew whose side these men were on.