Stringer (8 page)

6

I
t came to pass on the least likely of days: Sunday, the
jour de repos
, on which as per tradition the family rose together for breakfast and Jose played high-decibel devotional songs. Pedestrians outside sang to our music. The street had a lazy feel: People ambled; they did not walk. Even the dogs seemed to sit quietly. Men and women gathered in clumps along the road. They discussed the events of the week past: a fortunate few mentioned what had gone well; this gave everyone hope; most wished it had been better. There were those who openly prepared for the week ahead: mamas fried stocks of beignets; the neighbor's boy read his textbook. And for a few hours in the morning people seemed to set aside their troubles and make an effort to look their best. Jose wore his flappy brown suit on that day, and Nana a long red dress; Bébé Rhéma floundered in a blue frock. And the family joined the slow-moving procession of churchgoing people, all dressed like Christmas-tree ornaments and looking radiant.

I had decided to leave. Slowly, quietly, I was beginning to prepare. Sometimes I felt as if I had failed. It wasn't my fault, I told myself.

And the slowness of the Sunday helped to soften the feeling.

I rolled over in the bed and flipped the radio switch. The headlines: A governor committed to reducing power outages before elections. Some workers complained about transport to a copper factory; the cycle-taxis had raised prices, citing the cost of oil. The Belgian ambassador magnanimously announced a new aid program for the colony his country had once ravaged. Then an intermission of pop music; but the beats were weary; even the jockey seemed to have just gotten out of bed.

Seeing everyone in their fancy outfits made me want to wear something nice. I hadn't had a clean shirt in a week. Nana normally did the washing, but since our fight she had left my clothes soaking in a bucket. Clothes were important to the Congolese: people were judged by their dress, and I was no exception—I had noticed that my simple, crumpled clothes were not appreciated by the bureaucrats and politicians. But they helped me navigate Victoire: when vendors saw my Mexx shirt, so obviously purchased at the secondhand market and with stitches over its little tears, they did not bristle; some even treated me with deference.

I squatted between the pail and the toilet. The water was murky. I drew a shirt and started to scrub it between my hands. Then scrubbed with more vigor on a sock. But no matter the hardness of scrubbing I could not make suds. The detergent sachet was new; it seemed Unilever didn't sell the same Omo in all countries. The “clean” clothes I hung from the showerhead, over the sides of buckets and over my shoulders and neck while the rest I washed; the detergent dripped; and my skin itched. As I strung all the clothes on the line outside a sock fell on the dirt. I rinsed it under the yard tap and pegged it with a clip. I stood there, sweating. The socks and underwear dripped. On the ground I noticed a small pit where a pipe was leaking sewage, the pressure of the liquid slowly digging into the mud.

I had asked to meet Mossi that day—ostensibly for him to look at my bird flu story and see how to make it commercial. “Selling
to editors is a marketing job,” he assured me. “Completely different skill set from reporting.” I had not told Mossi of my decision to leave. I merely wanted to spend a little time together—I believed it could be one of our last meetings.

He was late, however, and it being Sunday, the internet café had not opened on time. I walked over to Anderson's.

He sat like a stone. Perhaps it was part of the new persona: he'd obtained a new red kiosk, with Celtel mottos on all its sides. On the front he'd had a painter scrawl “Celtel Center” in cursive. The sassy wood was gone. Anderson had become an official agent—he was moving up. With a little money, he said, he would order a street cleaning, to give his business the proper ambience. “Look at the mess,” he said, pointing. Papers littered the ground. I saw the previous day's edition of
Le Phare
with a headline about illegal uranium mining. The yellow cake was apparently being excavated with bare hands for exportation to North Korea and Iran.

Drawing a chair to the kiosk, I asked Anderson what news.

He showed me an Opposition Debout pamphlet, a cheap printout with smudged ink. Corruption in the ministries, political prisoners, angry threats to the government. “Same, same,” I said. He shook the paper so it stiffened. “Look.” At the page's bottom was a report that some Americans would be visiting for a gorilla conference.

I said, “Conservationists.”

“No”—his gaze searched me, and he sounded patronizing—“the CIA. They think they can wear straw hats and khaki and pretend to talk about apes? Fools.” He drew a plastic sachet from under his kiosk and unwrapped a mayonnaise sandwich. “Every few years they come, always on time,” he went on, “to give a man a suit and call him our president. The elections are no coincidence.” He swallowed a piece of bread and rubbed his palm over the back of his pants. “But they won't stop
us
.”

“The riots.”

“More, monsieur. An inferno.” His lips twitched.

And somehow it was easy to imagine our street, the houses and the cars in flames; the scene—of people sitting before broken walls and gates hanging from single hinges—seemed disjointed already, like a Guernica foreseen.

“Do you know
The Matrix
, Anderson? The movie?”

“I don't like Hollywood, monsieur.”

“You'd like this one. You look like one of the actors.”

He mumbled embarrassedly, as though not knowing how to digest the compliment.

The internet café had at last opened. It was empty but for two workers dusting computers with yellow feather brushes. Four dirty fans, on long stems, circled slowly above my head, with the subdued hum produced by low voltage.

I took a seat and waited for the data to stream over the satellites and cables. It seemed a miracle that we had the internet in Congo, when it worked—which seemed another miracle entirely. Often at the cafés the power would die, and one would wait for hours, not leaving the computer for fear of losing one's seat. There were also risks: Nana said the keyboards carried hepatitis. Her words always came to mind as I began typing. The internet was finally up. The image swam on the screen, as if it might slide off. The
Guardian
, the British newspaper, had replied.

I felt a wisp of hope. And then a sad relief. It was, like the others, a rejection. Mossi appeared in the chair next to mine and without asking began to read from my screen. When he finished he was frowning, shaking his head. “They have just two journalists for the continent and say don't bother sending stories? They are not serious, these people.” I felt as he did, that they were at fault—and that we were on the margins, and did not matter.

The internet café boy Stella came by with his hanging macaroni hair and 501 Levi's. I placed four hundred francs on the table. He scribbled a receipt. I could not yet confirm it, but something in his eyes gave me the idea that he was swindling the café.
I quickly went through the news: there were a handful of stories about Congo, none about bird flu, and nearly all from the four big agencies (the AP, AFP, Reuters and the BBC), written by the same four reporters. I leaned back. Mossi squinted at my flickering monitor.

“That one writes in the
Guardian
, I think,” he said. “Yes, quite sure.”

“Who, Bentley? You know him?” He was an important correspondent—I had seen his reports in the press.

“Not at all. We only met once.”

I nodded, and perhaps spoke only because Mossi then stayed quiet. “Nice guy?”

He shrugged, as if he did not know.

But in that moment of inertia, and hopelessness—it seemed something of an audacity on my part—I decided to go meet the correspondent. Mossi had his number. Bentley said he might have time, if I came at once.

The taxis were tardy. They were also unusually full: I had to let two vehicles pass. It was getting late. A minibus slowed, and a crowd gathered—I ran to the door and grabbed a piece of the handle, attaching myself to the moving vehicle. Men and women pushed and crushed me but I held on, head inside, legs running outside the bus; then a woman let go, creating a space. I hauled myself in. The taxi had never stopped; it had only slowed long enough to fill itself with people.

In the relatively spacious Westfalia with windows that opened a fraction and old carpets draped over the seats, we sat face-to-face, our knees touching; the man hanging on the back of the bus screamed, “Gront Hotel! Gront Hotel!” And I began to hope in a small way that Bentley might be able to help me. Perhaps he would call the
Guardian
's editors—and perhaps they would then accept my bird flu story, and also the one about the 25th Quarter. It might help me to stay in Congo a few more weeks. And this hope, this expectation that Bentley might solve some of my
problems, made me feel as I did before a job interview. I worried about how I would introduce myself, and whether Bentley would like me. That he could help seemed beyond doubt; but would he?

The meeting was to happen at Bentley's residence: the 422-room Grand Hotel, an epicenter of Congo's wealth and the very antithesis of Victoire. The hotel owed its name to the father Kabila, who after deposing Mobutu dismissed its American owners and claimed the hotel for his “grand country.” It was a place associated with many grotesque stories—many of killings—but also loved as a national icon. The taxi took us to the northwest district—to a point about equidistant from the railway station and Victoire, just before the president's house—and left me at the foot of an imposing gray tower. The air inside was icy, and came in a blast as the sliding doors opened. A chandelier glittered on the ceiling, dripping with crystal. Waiters wore stiff jackets and carried bread baskets. The hotel seemed something like an oasis in the city. I made straight for the toilets: my biggest stress in the house. I washed my face purely for the experience of running hot water. I inspected myself in the mirror, and saw dirt gathered around my neck. A sullen Congolese handed out white towels. Upon exiting the toilets one came into curved marble corridors lined with boutiques where attendants stood beside bags of leather, fur, rings and bracelets of diamonds and lesser gems like emerald and ruby, and figurines of ivory that the staff would proudly point out as their last pieces—the sale of ivory now being illegal.

I explored the halls in a stupor and arrived at the outdoor café, where Bentley had asked me to meet him.

The foreign correspondent wore a white shirt, brilliant in the bright light. His sleeves were folded up to his elbows, revealing pale and stout forearms with little hair. He was beefy and wide breasted, and as he came through the doors he wiped sweat from his forehead; he carried a notebook and two large telephones in the palm of his hand. I felt the nervousness come up.

He offered me a beer. It seemed an appropriate drink. And almost as soon as we took our seats, I was jealous. He seemed too certain. Of course he did: he lived at the hotel. He hardly had to move to find his sources; he had air-conditioning; he surely slept well. “Do you know anyone who might buy my work?” I asked, hopefully. I mentioned the
Guardian
. Bentley frowned, as though thinking. Around our Swedish picnic table the space was nearly empty. In the air was the beginning of the afternoon warmth; one felt on the skin a picking sensation, as though one's forehead and arms were being baked. Bentley idly cast his gaze about, and up and down the waitress. It became evident that he would not reply. I asked for advice, but he would not extend any. Only when I offered myself as his lackey—it was the most exploitative form of journalism—did he raise his head. I felt small. I imagined him as a buttery toad: with his small slit eyes, even when he blinked he seemed to stare.

He waved at two burly men who approached the next table; they threw heavy keys that clacked on the wood and took their seats, crushing the tails of their fine jackets. The waitress bent exaggeratedly to receive their order. With their buxom chests, expansive walks and sweeping gazes one felt those men occupied a space much larger than their physical limits. Bentley went over; he cupped their fingers delicately with both his hands. They talked with an affected friendliness, and I found their hearty laughs distressing, painful.

Bentley returned, ignoring me. He looked at my drink and grimaced: his glass was nearly empty but I had barely touched mine. He rocked the last of his soda from side to side; a piece of lime stayed afloat in the middle. The cutlery began to shiver. He was shaking his leg. Again he smiled at the other table. And now he seemed weak: supplicating before those men but eager to exploit me, to make me submit. As though I were some proof of his stature. It gave me an idea that he was himself under duress, frustrated, abused in some way.

I did not ask more questions. And I made to leave—and it was perhaps this silent expression of defeat that prompted Bentley, as he glanced at his watch, to relax, and drop his guard.

He said it impersonally. “Why don't you try the AP? Their correspondent recently quit.”

I froze. Had he really said that? And though later I would wonder if the look on his face—the way he trained his eyes on me—showed a regret, or loathing, for having let slip that information, at the time my mind was in a flurry; my cheeks felt hot. We both got up.

At Victoire, with the internet café boy Stella looking over my head, I sent the AP a message. “You found a job?” Stella asked credulously. And he decided he wanted to be a journalist as well. Almost immediately I received a call—it was the bureau chief. He hardly let me speak before launching into an onslaught of questions: “Yes, yes, of course we need someone, but who
are
you? And why the
hell
are you in Kinshasa?”

I became the AP stringer—without official contract or salary, or even proof that I worked for the press. But the editor had agreed to look at my stories. I could perhaps earn enough to live. Most crucially I could for the moment stay in Congo—when I thought about this the excitement rose like a current in my chest; at home I locked myself in my room and hopped about, boxing the air.