Stringer (5 page)

4

T
he following weekend I made a brief trip outside the capital. Before coming to Congo I had made contact with a student conservation group protecting rare mangrove forests. I wanted the environment to be a theme of my reporting, and the students were enthusiastic to show me their fieldwork. But more than anything, I was curious to get out of the city.

The coast was not too far away: we traveled most of the way by bus, passing forests and market towns, and then made a short ferry ride, until we came to the gushing mouth of the Congo River. The ferryboat curved around the continent, and to the port of Banana.

We lodged at a defunct resort on the beach. The rooms only provided shelter, without beds or electricity. Water had to be fetched from a nearby village. I walked with the students along the mangrove forest, with its stunted trees that seemed raised on stilts. We waded in the rivulets that flowed into the ocean. The students showed me some grunt fish that the locals hunted for food. In the evening we sat on the sand, watching the sun set over the waves. And at night the horizon seemed dotted with several suns—appearing almost as bright as during the day:
Congo's minuscule twenty-five miles of coast was rich with oil; the lights were the flares of oil rigs.

Each morning on the beach I watched a dozen fishermen push out their boats. By evening, when they returned, their fine nets had caught pebble-sized juveniles and discolored adults coated in black film.

It was for these sights that I had come. I conceived of this, my first trip outside Kinshasa, as an exploration of the context surrounding the capital: the sprawling grasslands, the ghostly villages, the gushing river, the giant Japanese suspension bridge ordered by Mobutu, the ships at the port cities (an American naval vessel was docked at one), the heavily guarded oil company premises (visitors were not even allowed to stand nearby). And already I felt my notion of Congo expand: the city had swamped the senses with its movement and noise, but the countryside had an intellectual, less accessible complexity—for whom had the Americans come? There had been no news in Kinshasa. Was the ocean being poisoned, emptied of fish? How much had the petroleum company paid the oil minister? Here the machinations seemed beyond the scrutiny of the people and able to proceed in silence, secrecy.

It would have to be from the city outward that I would grasp Congo. The excursion ended too quickly: the weekend was barely over when we left for Kinshasa. The students piled into the bus with boxes of specimens. We rumbled up the hills. And as much as the trip had progressed in friendly atmosphere, the journey home was marred by misunderstandings: the students had assumed that I, as the foreigner, would pay for their hotel, food and bus tickets. Worse, they believed I had promised. After several arguments—which effectively ended our friendship—I agreed to pay half.

We approached the suburbs of Kinshasa and passed through them one by one. Each seemed a separate city, with a different
vibe: cordial, lazy, tumultuous. Our bus traveled alongside container trucks bringing food and merchandise from the ports. There were the tankers, spilling what seemed like gasoline in a trail from their bottoms. On the tall trees hung black balls like pendulums—weaverbird nests. We drove beside rows and rows of pylons that brought electricity from the massive river dams, and we followed the wires into the city.

The reception at home was cool. Jose and Nana were preoccupied with paying the electricity bill and the rent. Corinthian was hardly around, passing his nights at the church compound. There was some news: the Opposition Debout had marched peacefully on the Boulevard, to which the government had sent riot police. It created bad sentiment in the neighborhood. At the bars, the corner shop, and around the kiosks the discussions centered on the new wave of government reprisals; and like everything at the time the authorities were also blamed when it emerged that a financial crisis had hit Victoire.

The trouble, only now apparent, had begun about a week earlier when overnight the Congolese currency had inflated by 5 percent. That had been attributed to rumors. But after the fourth and fifth days of further rises the crisis could no longer be doubted. Inflation was not new to the
cité
, but now the elections were suspected. There was proof: the Opposition Debout leaked information that the president was printing thousands of bills to fund his campaign. The street's economy was paralyzed.

The
ville
hardly noticed—the dollar prices at its expatriate restaurants barely budged. But our neighborhood was in turmoil. There was a rampage of purchases, and the extra cash accelerated the inflation. Nana, trying to keep up, constantly needed money. Common sense was lost: vendors sold goods by auction. Exchanges were set up between parts of the city to profit from
arbitrage. By the time the frenzy cooled I had bought several crates of water and toilet paper. Nana had bought so much rice the storeroom resembled a small granary.

Our neighbors from across the street visited, but I had to refuse them funds. Jose advised I keep my money somewhere else. “Not to scare unnecessarily, but I don't want you to have a bad experience in my house.” Nana began to leave her phone when she left for the market. Jose no longer wore his Yamamoto watch.

The city's most credible bank was in the
ville
. It was called RAW. An Indian family ran it and the manager, a short man with thick, oily hair, welcomed me with special warmth. He asked where I came from, and about my family. On the wall, a gilded plaque boasted of an affiliation with Citigroup, next to a map of India and a garlanded picture of one of the owners' ancestors. I felt reassured, for I had come with a problem: RAW required a ten-thousand-dollar minimum to open an account. The bank catered to diamond dealers—and reputedly to Avi Mezler, an Israeli notorious for dirty dealings. The manager patiently listened to my case and then picked up the phone. At the end of a quick deliberation with his chief he said for some reduced wire-transfer privileges he would be able to make an exception. I thanked him profusely.

The next day I combined some errands with the trip to the bank, to make the initial deposit. It was a relaxed day, and after an interview with an NGO boss, I was near the Chanimétal shipyards, waiting for a taxi. Then, without warning, the road filled with honks. A 4x4 with blinking taillights roared past, followed by two others. Suddenly a convoy of black jeeps. It was the president. But tailing him—almost harassing his convoy—was a rattling car drawing a long opposition banner. People were being called to march against Kabila. Pedestrians cheered at the passing car. Demonstrators would soon block the traffic; I would have to hurry to the bank and hurry again to reach home.
I waved my finger vigorously. A white hatchback stopped at the curb. The driver leaned out, “Boulevard?”

The two passengers in the backseat squeezed me between them. The driver wore a felt bowler hat. The car was in good shape: the seats were clean, our feet rested on rubber mats and the dashboard dials seemed to work. From the rearview mirror hung a miniature penguin. The travelers smiled at me as if they wanted to make friends.

One of them handed out a bag of licorice candy, and soon all of us were holding the thin red straws between our lips. I passed on the bag, careful not to touch the melted syrup on the plastic. They sucked, slurped and ground the licorice to pieces. The bag was emptied.

“You like our country?” the driver asked, chewing.

“Very much. I just came from the coast; it's beautiful.”

“Is it? I've never been outside Kinshasa.”

“You've never seen the sea?”

“Only on TV.”

The driver smiled, looking at me in the rearview mirror. My gaze shifted to the road, then back to the mirror. The driver pulled the licorice from his mouth and held the soggy strand, licking his lips before speaking; there was a gap between his front teeth and though he wasn't fat he had a double chin, which was unusual for a Congolese. “Have you had a chance to see our monuments?”

We passed a wide gray building, some ten stories high, covered with laundry whose dripping had over the years made vertical lines on the walls. “Look at how the army lives in that hospital.” A decapitated tank covered in ferns sat in the courtyard. “It's been this way for a long time,” he said mournfully. And at that moment the lined gray building looked as if it wept.

The blue presidential compound appeared, with its giant iron gates and battalion of guards. The driver's teeth were now red; he seemed in a daze, looking at the guards and talking in a flurry—
then ranting, like the opposition: “Congo could be the greatest country in the world. If they shared just a little of our wealth. But our leaders only think about themselves. Egoists.”

It was a familiar grievance in Kinshasa. I didn't feel qualified to speak.

Our car sped through the streets, through slums and beside rows of misshapen dwellings made of corrugated tin. Women stood with colored plastic buckets in long lines at water pumps. The tin reflected the light and the roofs appeared brilliant, blinding.

“This city is a pile of rubbish,” the driver went on. “Look at the garbage on the road. They sweep and pile it up but then leave it for the wind and the rain. What is the use?”

We had reached the Boulevard. It was midday and trucks were in town to deliver goods—their dense exhausts clouded the grim crowds huddled atop each vehicle, their legs reaching over the trucks' dusty tarps and bouncing against the metal sides. Our taxi followed the slow traffic, repeatedly jerking to accelerate and brake. We came upon an orange edifice—the Ministry of Migration—and now the driver completely lost his head.

“I used to work there, but they threw me out,” he said, pointing to his side. “It is the Ministry of
Méchant
[Malice]. They should make it a prison. No need to move anyone.”

The other passengers laughed. I looked around. The worn condition of their shirts betrayed that they were of the poorer classes, from the
bidonvilles
, the suburban shantytowns. They probably headed into the city for some minor commerce: to pawn a trinket or as day laborers; the going rate was eighty cents for eight hours of work, but that would pay for a roll of bread and a Coca-Cola, and perhaps something for the children. An urge overtook me: I wanted to show I cared about them though I was a stranger—that despite my relative health and riches I sympathized with their condition.

“That ministry stole two hundred dollars from me at the airport,”
I said. “Even though I had a valid visa from New York, they threatened to lock me up until I paid a bribe.” I pointed accusingly at the orange building behind us. “That place is full of thieves!”

The driver stopped nodding and he frowned in the mirror, the edges of his face now contorted. The passengers began to shake their legs. Feet rapped against the rubber mats; air whistled through a gap in the window. We passed a street policeman. The driver shook his head, slowly, like a metronome. He became pensive, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

“Thieves,” he murmured, so softly that he seemed to whisper, and then his tone was frighteningly hysterical: “
Thieves
? You are who to be talking like this?”

We suddenly accelerated. The driver firmly shifted gears. And when the car swerved off the Boulevard I realized I was in trouble. “I'll get off here please.”

“Calm down. I'm taking you, aren't I?”

I leaned forward with an effort—the passengers had wedged me tight. “I've changed my mind. I'll get off here.”

“Tranquille.”
The driver pushed me back with a firm hand. The backseat men pinned down my shoulders.

The man to my left plunged his hand into his pants. Oh, f——.

He fumbled with a black revolver whose handle was misshapen. Deftly he ejected the magazine. “See?” It was full, stacked with shiny bronze bullets. He reloaded the gun, cocked it with a click and pressed the barrel against my temple. His eyes were like two bulging onions. His arms were thick and venous.

I screamed. He pressed his fingernails into my throat. I gasped. I screamed louder, without thinking. His nails cut into my skin; it made a piercing pain. “Shut up or I'll shoot,” he hissed.

“Don't do this. I'm a friend of the Opposition Debout. Ask Anderson!”

“Who?” The driver's stained lips made thin red lines like arteries. My vision went blurry. I felt disconnected from the world.
It felt as if there had never been a connection. I was completely betrayed. I closed my eyes. I squirmed as I felt their hands move up the insides of my legs and down the small of my back, over the lining of my underwear and in every crack and crevice they could find. Their rough hands, sandy, coarse. They pushed me open, pulled me apart. Their fingers were powerful. I was immobile, helpless. I gave in, only wanting them to stop.

They dumped me near the river, in a wealthy neighborhood. I fell on the ground and rolled to the side. The door banged shut. The hatchback, speeding away, didn't have a license plate.

It screeched around the corner. All around me the walls were high. Alerted by the noise, two guards came to a peephole in a gate. The people here would not help. They were people who lived in big houses with big cars and big money. You should have robbed
them
! The words screamed in my mind.
Why me?

And I'd lost the deposit money—thinking the cash would be unsafe in the house I had taken nearly all of it; and now it was gone.

“Police! Where do I find the police?” I shouted, stretching my arms down the street in either direction. The guards shut their peephole. A finger rose above the gate. That way.

In that moment I felt the need for pity, and my frustration came out in this terrible way. My body lurched forward instead of walking; enervated, I wanted to fall. At the Boulevard the beggars were waiting. I heard them first. Moneymoneymoney. Young, old, hunchbacked, stunted, hairy, bald, they ambushed, grabbed. I turned to run but they had made a ring and converged. Suddenly surging I pushed away their heads, shoulders, muscular chests; my hands felt the dirt on their bodies and I started to slap them, jolt them, hit them hard. They scattered: behind cars and buildings; in the shadows of doorways. I was alone, and it was like after a sudden storm. Cars honked and rushed past. The breeze flapped my shirt.