A Single Swallow (15 page)

‘Is it like the old one?'

‘It's much better. A block back from the road, near the airport, plenty of space between the perimeter and the building, so if we have to we can pick 'em off as they come over the wall . . .'

The embassy-builders' lives fascinated me. They had all toured what seemed like dozens of countries, living in a travelling parallel world.

‘What's the plan tonight?'

‘You're coming out with us. We're gonna have a few drinks here, and then we're gonna go to a bar and get a few more, and then we're going out dancing, and you're gonna see more beautiful women who want you than you ever have in your life.'

We went to a dark cellar bar, air-conditioned, and drank while the clock turned towards night-club time. Some Congolese women turned up. We were all introduced with great courtesy by Jim, the extrovert king of the group, the man whom I had first spoken to. He had built embassies in more countries than I could count. Brazzaville was a hell of a lot quieter than some of the places he worked in, ‘But it does have some good women!' he said.

His beautiful girlfriend laughed and kissed him. He was helping to put her child through school.

‘It's only a small embassy,' said another man, whom I privately christened the Quiet American. ‘What did you say you do?'

They were careful with me, saying as much as they could and automatically stopping short of a shared silence, a place like a wide, forbidden compound of things they could not say. There was one language we could all speak, as men far from home, and another only they spoke, which they would never use in public. They apologised for it with jokes and references.

‘You better watch out!' Jim laughed. ‘He's going to have to open a file on you now.'

I seemed to remember reading that Americans serving in the UK had to report encounters with the British public as alien contacts. I teased them about it. The Quiet American did not quite blush as he looked at the floor.

‘How does Brazzaville compare with other places you have been?'

The Quiet American pursed his lips. ‘Honestly? I would say this place is as dead as dead. There is nothing happening here at all.'

Somewhere out there, beyond the land, according to a paper I had read, two American warships were circling the continent, while diplomats tried to find a country prepared to host Africom – a military hub, a US equivalent of the French base in Djibouti. According to the article they were not having a great deal of luck, if the pronouncements of African leaders were true.

The embassy-builders said they did not know about that, but their construction would have lots of potential.

‘There's only gonna be a few Marines stationed there but you
should see it. There's bunks and showers and even TVs all ready. If they ever have to send a detachment here all they do is switch it all on.'

The night club divided into three strata. We stood at a bar scattered with other ex-pats; European men, late twenties to mid-sixties, lit by bright down-lights and multiplied in mirrors behind bottles. In the dark, against the opposite wall, were Congolese men. They sat in small groups and huddles, their eyes sweeping the bar and the spaces between us all, in which there were the girls. They outnumbered the men dancing three to one. If you met any of their eyes it was taken as an invitation.

‘What do you think it's like, for those guys,' I asked one of the Americans, ‘watching us? Don't you think they must hate us?'

‘It must be weird for them,' said Dino, another of the embassy-builders. He was a broad Italian American who specialised in electronic security.

‘That girl, she's beautiful,' he sighed. ‘I'm gonna ask her out.'

That girl was beautiful. Anna spoke French, Dino English: I became a translator.

‘Tell him I think he is very nice.'

‘Tell her she is very pretty.'

‘Ask him if he has a wife.'

‘Tell her no, I don't! Is she married?'

‘Ask him where he is from.'

‘Tell her I'm American. Ask her where is she from?'

‘Tell him I am from Kinshasa.'

‘Ask her what she is doing here.'

‘Tell him I am here for a rest! Ha ha ha! I have a hairdressing business.'

‘Tell her she has beautiful skin.'

‘Tell him I know he will have other girls.'

‘Dino, she says she knows you will have other girls!'

‘No way! That's not true. Ask her if she would like to go out with me tomorrow.'

‘I am busy tomorrow but I will go out with him on Sunday.'

‘Right, that's it! You guys understand each other just fine; I'm out.'

Wilfred was transformed. Now he was wearing a black T-shirt, with
POLICE
stamped on it in white, spotless black combat trousers, black combat boots, and a black automatic on his hip.

‘Do you ever have to fire the gun?'

‘Not yet.'

He led the way past the bars, through broken gates, to the port proper. Under the flat, hot sky a large market was in progress. Sacks of food were being unloaded from barges: a load of beans from Cameroon had just arrived. Spread out on the ground were fabrics, cassava, fish, chickens, vegetables, rice, spices, wood and a bundle of young crocodiles, alive, and all for sale. The crocodiles had their jaws lashed tight around wooden bits. They were not much under 5½ feet long and looked sunburned under their brown scales. Only their eyes moved, as if they were pretending to be a stack of planks.

‘So what do you actually do here, Wilfred?'

‘I make sure it is secure.'

We walked along to some warehouses where a group of birds were fluttering around iron beams. They were hirundines, but not, I was sure, Barn Swallows. We wandered back to the market, Wilfred pointing out the ferry to Kinshasa which was coming in sideways, stemming the current. Suddenly around us there was a chorus of whoops and shouts.

A thin man with bare feet in a ragged shirt and tattered shorts was running for his life.

‘A thief,' said Wilfred, mildly, not moving. The man was tearing away from the crowd which was stilled, staring. Two or three men ran after him, sprinting as fast as they could. He ran first directly away from the river but quickly slowed on an unstable sandbank rising to an iron fence. The pursuers gained; one grabbed at him. He leapt away from the clutching hands and people in the crowd cried out as he changed direction, now coming down the bank. It had been apparent
from the first instant that he could not escape: where could he run? The pursuers closed again. The fugitive stumbled, his foot slipped on sand and he crashed down, captors piling over and onto him. The crowd sighed. Men dragged the thin man to his feet and hustled him along, his head hanging and his steps uneven, weak now, as though all his strength had gone.

‘What are they going to do with him?'

‘They are taking him to the police post there,' said Wilfred. ‘If we were not here they would kill him.'

Five minutes later, having taken his time passing between the knots of people in the market, Wilfred led me to see the man.

‘What did he steal?'

‘I don't know,' Wilfred said.

The man was sitting on the floor against the back wall of the police post. One of his knees was bleeding. A policeman sat between him and the door. The captive looked up. Wilfred surveyed him, then exchanged words in Lingala with the guard. There was no expression on the thin man's face but his eyes seemed to stare in spite of themselves. He was still panting slightly. We were all sweating.

‘What will happen to him?'

‘He will be fined, but if he does not have any money they will let him go later.'

It seemed I was expected to talk to the man.

‘Are you all right?'

He nodded.

‘Is your leg all right?'

He nodded again. There was nothing more to say, and the future seemed entirely uncertain. Would the man be beaten? Killed? Nothing seemed determined, likely or impossible. Wilfred and I returned to the bar, to drink and gaze at the river.

It was staggeringly hot in town later. A wind blew up clouds of dust from the roads which seemed to make the air hotter. The heat beat behind my eyes and in my temples; my legs shook like the thief's. You had to walk very slowly, or sit down.

I followed the sound of a celebration through deserted streets. In a
forecourt behind railings in front of a government building people in bright clothes were singing and clapping their hands under a banner which said this was a celebration of the inauguration of new delegates – delegates for what it did not say. There were no bystanders; just women and men dancing and singing, in the heat, behind the railings. Despite their swaying and singing and the bright colours of the women's dresses there was a strained, isolated atmosphere, as if this was a staged rehearsal. I approached but then an army truck appeared, open-backed and stuffed with soldiers in purple berets. Their weapons protruded from the truck like spines: they did not carry their rifles at the vertical, but at the ready. They were not like any soldiers I had ever seen; neither cool professionals nor bored recruits; they were tense, tight-eyed, their faces blank; it was impossible to tell what they were thinking: pain at the heat, anger, anticipation of trouble – some sort of attack? I fled.

The evening had barely cooled when Dino and I went for a walk.

‘I just love my job,' he said. ‘Lots of guys stay in but I love to go out. I'll walk anywhere, man. There's nowhere I won't walk.'

We walked under mango trees, through sunlight, under tall palms, passed heat-killed cafés.

‘Are you coming to church tomorrow?' he asked. ‘Lots of the guys go. Jim goes.'

I said I would not, as I was not Catholic.

‘That building sure got shot up,' Dino remarked, in his gentle way. I looked up. The front of the building was a splatter of holes, rips, tears and deep pits, as though it had been hit by a carnival of ordnance.

Dino and Anna had had a lovely day, Dino said, when we met for a drink the next night. Dino was all smiles and Anna was giggly and glowing.

‘She showed me all around Brazzaville, and I met her daughter, she's real sweet too. Can you tell her I had a really good day today, and say thank you to her for me again?'

Anna laughed.

‘Tell him he is a very nice guy. Tell him I know he will have other girls. I don't care! I like him but if he wants another girl I will go out with a man from Kinshasa. I like him though, he touches me very well. He has a good body. Ha ha ha! Don't tell him that.'

‘Don't tell him what?'

‘What did she say?'

‘She says she likes you but she is worried you will have other girls.'

‘Tell her I really like her, she's real beautiful.'

Anna pouted theatrically.

‘And tell her I had a real special day today, and I'm really interested in Brazzaville. Tell her I appreciate it. If she could show me things like today I would be really grateful.'

We all went to the club again that night. A woman standing next to me was making notes and chain-smoking fearsome cigarettes. She had a cloud of dark hair and pale skin. Alone of everyone in the night club, she did not seem to care a fig for how she looked, in jeans and a dark sweatshirt. I introduced myself and asked who she was.

‘Christine.'

‘You are French?'

‘Yes. You?'

She narrowed her eyes at the Welsh line, and at the fact I was following swallows.

‘Have you seen any?'

‘Not in Brazzaville, not yet! What are you writing there?'

‘I'm just finishing work.'

‘What do you do?'

‘I'm a journalist.'

‘Oh really? Me too!'

She backed rapidly away from journalism then. She was training journalists, she said, vaguely. I was tipsy and the music very loud.

‘Oh I get it!' I shouted. ‘You're a spy!'

She laughed, throwing her head back.

‘I'm having a real problem not meeting spies in Brazzaville,' I confessed. We drank more whisky, smoked more cigarettes, and then
Christine hit the dance floor. She danced wildly with Anna. Anna and Dino left after a while, but I stayed on. Later, one of the Americans told me a story from another world. I listened in silence.

At the end I said, ‘So what do you think happened?'

‘I don't know.'

‘But he was dead when you touched him?'

‘Yeah, I said immediately, this guy is dead. He was limp, there was blood coming out from under his hood.'

‘What did the CIA guys say?'

‘We don't say CIA, we say OGA – Other Government Agency.'

‘What did they say?'

‘They didn't say nothing. They just went. Procedure took over then.'

‘But they had been screaming questions at him in the shower for half an hour? At a corpse?'

‘I guess. I don't even know if he was alive when they dragged him into the bathroom.'

‘But you thought he was.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Do you realise what you have just told me?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Listen, I've got to ask you. You know, right, that as far as I am concerned, as far as a lot of – people – like me – are concerned, this kind of thing is the enemy. It's everything that is wrong.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Right. And you believe in America, don't you, you believe that what you are trying to do is for the best?'

‘Yeah.'

‘OK, so what I want to know is, how bad is it? Are we right to be scared?'

He looked at the floor and his face went dark.

‘There're things I've seen I wouldn't even tell a top-cleared American,' he said.

Dino had the next day off and, it became apparent after breakfast, planned to spend it in bed with Anna. I went to look for swallows.

‘Sometimes there are pythons in the rocks,' said Aimé, my taxi driver and guide. We had driven south of the city, through the Bacongo district, down to the cataracts. We left the car and walked along a track beside the Mambili, a little river that flows through lush greenery to sandbanks, and out into the Congo. The Congo at this point is flowing between two banks which seem much too close together for the immense volume of the river, causing the waters to race and surge up into the gigantic rapids I had seen from the aeroplane: the cataracts.