Stringer (6 page)

As I traversed the long Boulevard the Congolese faces blurred
into one another. At every corner I became apprehensive; all the figures seemed to resemble the robbers. And on the narrower roads I felt watched. I became conscious of the strange sight I made: the walking foreigner. I kept my distance, careful not to brush against the pedestrians. Physical separation was my small way of escape; but it was ineffective. In my alarmed state I stared at each person, scrutinizing the face; they returned my stares; and I felt angrier, but shorn, small.

The roads had no sidewalks so I had to compete with the traffic for the uneven graveled street edges, ditched and crammed with equipment: generators, barrows, pumps, piping; the taxi-buses I used to travel in now nearly hit me, careening, honking drumbeats, preventing me from crossing streets. The wayside shops were grouped together by type: on one street were automobile spare-parts garages and on the other only furniture stores. Chairs and coatracks spilled onto the driving areas. I passed photography studios, paper boutiques, and rows and rows of dark houses. It took me two hours to reach the police station. I arrived tired and thirsty.

I had imagined the station as a place of authority, like the ministries, or the presidential palace. But it was a simple oblong compound, guarded by a single sentry. Inside the gates was a long tree-lined courtyard. To each side cadres trained and played football. At the far building I was made to register at a desk and then ushered into a waiting area—a cramped room with a few chairs and a mass of silent people who stared. I felt guilty at once.

I was made to wait like the others, without privilege. An hour or so later my name was called. A policeman led me to a room that was airy but bleak: the windows had no curtains, the hanging bulb was without shade and the table's only chair was positioned across from the officer—like in an interrogation cell. The officer wore square gold spectacles that accentuated his sunken cheeks. His navy-blue uniform was regular, thin at the waist and swollen at the limbs. He smiled sinisterly. A white page graced
the table. He drew columns on it with a ruler and abruptly began: “Dead or alive?” His tone was irreverent, even for such a question.

He asked for my parents' names, dates of birth and nationalities. He sneezed. A soiled handkerchief appeared from his pocket and ran over his hands. He asked where my parents worked, which school they went to and if they were Catholic or Protestant. “Hindu?” It seemed unacceptable. “Fetish?” he asked. I said no. He wrote “Other.”

He said, “Spectacles?”

“Yes, both of them.”

“No, no. Versace? Armani?”

He pulled out a pair (Nina Ricci) and positioned them on his head—he now wore two pairs. Adjusting himself in his seat he asked where I lived, where I had lived and the names of all the countries I had visited before Congo. He sneezed again. The page was spotted with droplets. With his handkerchief he held his nose; his finger probed inside his nostril. For two minutes he cleaned it. Then he asked what I had studied, and where, how I spoke French, for whom I was working. “No one?” He said suspiciously: “What
are
you doing here?”

He squinted at me and slowly returned to his paper. But there was an error in the spelling of “journalist.” He sighed. With the ruler he crossed out the word and from his cupboard lifted two small bottles that were shaken spiritedly; the erroneous word was smudged with white paint. He blew over the page at an angle. We waited for it to dry. Then he wrote again, slowly, in clean schoolboy cursive, pen rolling over the paper. He sneezed. The wet handkerchief appeared. He brushed the page and wiped his pen. My patience wearing, I interrupted the ceremony.

“Monsieur Officer. I'm in a hurry, please—those robbers were on the Boulevard two hours ago. If you move quickly you could still find my money!”

He looked bemused. “But there's a process to be followed.”

I stood. “What process? Have you ever caught anyone?”

He huffed. A framed photograph was produced from his drawer. Against a red Peugeot leaned four Congolese men, wearing sleeveless jackets, shades and pointed leather shoes. They looked like criminals, but this was the elite unit. “Team Cobra,” the officer said. “The country's best.” He held the photograph in front of his chest like a winner's plaque.

“And what did they recover?”

“The red car!”

For a moment I considered it. And then, after a little discussion, I discovered the catch: their search could take days, weeks, even months; and all the while I would be paying. “Only business expenses,” said the policeman, sensing my apprehension. “Cobra will be working for you full-time.”

I closed my eyes and sighed slowly, feeling the last of my hope evaporate. The chair clattered as I pushed it away. The policeman said, “
Ei!
The report costs ten dollars!” Again he sneezed. I stepped into the evening. “Who do you think you are, eh? This is the process in our country!”

The traffic had eased, and I walked intentionally slowly. I was simultaneously thinking about if the money was truly lost—if I had forgotten some possible solution—and assessing what that loss would mean: immediate concerns, of food and rent, mixed with a broader, numbing anxiety that I could not place and that pervaded every possible future I could imagine. It became too much. I stopped thinking. From the outside for once the house seemed settled. Its light spilled into the courtyard, making the mud glow orange. Jose was wiping down the music system with a white cloth. “
Ça va
, Anjan?” He looked up, his expression tender.

“
Très bien
, Jose.”

Nana had sprayed my room with mosquito repellent, as a favor. But I felt nauseous inside. Squatting in the corridor I waited for the smell to leave, and I felt my neck where the robber's nail had pierced the skin. The wound was inflamed; it hurt to the touch.

Only when I lay in bed and looked at the overhead wooden beam did I feel the full horror. The scene of the taxi kept resurfacing. I spent hours picturing how I had entered the taxi. If only I had noticed how strangely the passengers had squeezed. The driver's smile now seemed too friendly. I regretted that I had felt pity. I despised my good intentions. In the last visions just before I fell asleep I invented new scenarios that had me catch the driver unawares and beat him up. I seemed strong. And now
I
was able to hold a gun against his head.

It was early morning when I called Mossi, the journalist. I had not told Nana or Jose, and even to Mossi the words did not come out: “Two thousand six hundred and fifty dollars.” The shock was still present. The crime had been like a violation that made me, the victim, feel ashamed that it had happened—it was as though not only my body but also my experience, memories and mind had been sullied.

I decided to press on with my journalism plans. The decision didn't require much thought: I had not prepared for any other kind of commerce, and I needed money. There was no time to dally now—I felt I should act, and that this would somehow soothe the growing anguish.

When I told Mossi I'd had trouble he only said, “What do you need?” I was grateful for his discretion. I said I needed to find a story, something I could sell quickly. He paused, then said, “I'm interviewing a drug manufacturer. About bird flu. Don't tell anyone, it's hot-hot. He's a fabulous man, a real magnate from India. Maybe you'll get along.” I had expected him at best to give me a second-rate lead. This was a generous offer.

I dressed in a hurry and ran water through my hair. And now the house seemed lively. Metal scrubbed dishes. Flames crackled. A bristled broom scratched cement. The neighbor's chicken clucked in the yard. Bébé Rhéma gurgled on Nana's hip. The baby's nose dripped; Nana pinched out the mucus between her thumb and forefinger and flicked it to the ground.

At my request Corinthian came to the taxi station and had a word with the driver. “I'll need to be back in the evening,” I said to Corinthian. “May God bless you,” was his answer. He promised to come get me. It felt comforting to shake his hand. And everyone in the taxi saw that I was friends with the pastor.

Mossi was outside the café, carrying a worn-leather bag, heavy with papers. He had brought a range of pens as well: blue, red, green. “Journalism is like art,” he said. “Sometimes even these colors are not enough.” For Mossi had his proper vision of the journalist life. He refused to own a car. “We should be close to the people. In your car how will you feel the pulse of the city?” He advised me to be thankful for my dingy room: I would live cheap, move like the locals and discuss the issues that mattered to them. “You are the High Representative of the little man,” he said, writing
High Representative
and scribbling extravagant messy circles around the words and all over the page.

I felt overwhelmed by Mossi's energy, and by the interview preparations as a whole: we had stacks of papers to read, questions to formulate, the story to draft; without resistance, feeling directionless and dazed, I was swept into the process; and I momentarily forgot my situation.

Mossi said everything had been arranged for our meeting with Satwant Singh. But the office receptionist, a stern Congolese, twirled on her chair and said, “I am not aware of your appointment.” She wore a dress with a picture of the president painted on her stomach. Around the image were inscribed the words “My Husband Is Capable.” She looked at me starkly; I stopped reading her belly. She said, “Wait over there,” as if speaking to a child.

Mossi and I sat on an old leather sofa between two men holding VIP briefcases who leaned against the back wall, mouths open, exhaling hot air onto curls of peeling wallpaper. On the wall was a picture of Satwant, in gray turban, shaking President Kabila's hand. Satwant looked elated; the president bored. They
stood before the building we waited in, half of which was the “Head Quarters,” according to a sign, for Satwant's pharmaceutical facility. The other half was his house.

Satwant stormed in and banged heads with Mossi. He was in black turban and black suit. We banged heads as well—it was the formal Congolese greeting (and because none of us was Congolese, it showed a special intimacy). The secretary glowered.

The magnate escorted us inside, taking purposeful strides. A brass plate announced his house: “Shantinivas—Abode of Peace.” He shouted for his wife. She appeared, edging forward in a hobble. “Arthritis,” said Satwant. I didn't know whether to believe him, because a friend had pointed out to me that in Punjab women are still fattened with milk and glorified in poems:

With silver crescents in their ears

The two women walk the village path

Like vermilion-painted elephants

Graceful and swaying.

I had begun to feel buoyant. The interview was unfolding perfectly—Satwant was treating us with warmth and sobriety: as important guests, not as common reporters. My respect for Mossi swelled. And I regained some of my curiosity, my previous enthusiasm; again little things amused, offering relief.

“Please,” said Satwant, indicating a low table adorned with flowers. The wife served coffee and “ordinary cake” (as opposed to cream cake, but she said this cake was “extra ordinary”). Sat-want moved his hand over the hairs of his forearm, delicately, as if feeling their softness. Mossi began expertly, giving the industrialist the stage: “Bird flu, Mr. Singh. Hype or serious issue?”

“Oh, very serious.” Poker face. Satwant didn't blink.

“Is Congo prepared?”

“No.”

Mossi and I exchanged an appropriately grim look. We were onto something. And Satwant was talking. I raised my pen and asked, “How bad could this get?”

“The first cases of human-to-human H5N1 have already been confirmed. It is only a question of time. When the bird flu hits Congo it will cause a catastrophe.”

“Millions?” I asked.

“Easily millions.”

Mossi hummed and noted the word. He underlined it. I created a provisional headline: “Millions at Risk from Bird Flu. Government Unprepared.”

The interview went so well that we stayed two hours. Mossi read from a list of pandering questions but soon Satwant ignored the script and started on a monologue. He had traveled from India to Uganda and Tanzania before coming to Congo. “This country is Africa's biggest hope. As a businessman I have never seen an economy with such potential. Only two problems: corruption and bad hygiene. Please write this in your stories. I have factories to make medicines but no one wants to buy. It's the NGOs. Only American medicines, they say. They don't want to give Africans jobs. I'm telling you, I used to work at Novartis.”

It was mentioned that I had recently arrived in the country. Satwant was surprised, then effusive. “You came to find your potential. That's like me.” He promised to organize a dinner for the three of us; and then he stood. I gathered my things. But Mossi had planned the meeting's conclusion. “The camera,” he said, gesturing like a surgeon.

Under Mossi's direction we moved to the study room. It was floored with green linoleum and decorated with some shelves of books. The industrialist was made to sit behind the glass-topped desk. Mossi adjusted Satwant's hands on the table. Behind him he positioned the Congolese flag.

“Three, two, one,” Mossi said.

Satwant smiled at the camera and raised his chin. Through the viewfinder, his body looked stiff and tiny, but his head seemed large. I clicked.

Mossi raised his hands to his head. I sensed disappointment even from Satwant, who looked around senselessly while keeping his arms flat on the table. “Do it again,” Mossi said. “Open your
flash
.”

Satwant shook the ruffles from his sleeves. The camera popped like a fused bulb, like a magician's trick; I took three rapid shots; Satwant kept a stupid grin. He looked dizzy, dazed from the rapid bursts of light in his face. Mossi clapped his hands. “What a picture. What a great picture!”