The Mission Song (16 page)

The floor has not swallowed me up, nobody has pointed the finger and denounced me. Somehow we are gathered at the gaming table and I am rendering Philip’s words of welcome into Swahili. The Swahili is freeing me, which it always does. Somehow I have survived the handshakes and introductions, and everyone is in his appointed place except Jasper who, having been presented to the Mwangaza and his advisors, has been escorted from the room by Benny, I presume for the greater safety of his professional conscience. Philip’s speech is jocular and brief and his pauses fall where I would wish them.

For my audience I have selected a litre bottle of Perrier water twenty inches in front of me, eye contact in the early minutes of a session being your interpreter’s deathtrap. You catch an eye, a spark of complicity flies, and the next thing you know, you’re in that person’s pocket for the duration. The most I permit myself, therefore, is a few furtive brushstrokes of my lowered gaze, in the course of which the Mwangaza remains a hypnotic, birdlike shadow perched between his two attendants: to one side of him, the pocked and formidable Tabizi, former Shiite and now Christian convert, clad head to toe in shades of designer charcoal; and to the other his glossy no-name acolyte and political advisor, whom I secretly christen the Dolphin on account of his hairlessness and the all-weather smile which, like the bootlace-thin pigtail sprouting from the nape of his shaven neck, seems to operate in detachment of its owner. Maxie sports a regimental-type tie. My orders are to render nothing into English for him unless he signals for it.

A word here regarding the psychology of your multi-linguist. People who put on another European language, it is frequently observed, put on another personality with it. An Englishman breaking into German speaks more loudly. His mouth changes shape, his vocal cords open up, he abandons self-irony in favour of dominance. An Englishwoman dropping into French will soften herself and puff out her lips for pertness, while her male counterpart will veer towards the pompous. I expect I do the same. But your African languages do not impart these fine distinctions. They’re functional and they’re robust, even when the language of choice is colonial French. They’re peasant languages made for straight talk and good shouting in argument, which Congolese people do a lot of. Subtleties and evasion are achieved less by verbal gymnastics than by a change of topic or, if you want to play safe, a proverb. Sometimes I’ll be aware, as I hop from one language to another, that I have shifted my voice to the back of my throat to achieve the extra breath and husky tone required. Or I have a feeling, for instance when I am speaking Kinyarwanda, that I’m juggling a hot stone between my teeth. But the larger truth is, from the moment I settle into my chair, I become what I render.

Philip has ended his speech of welcome. Seconds later, so have I. He sits down and rewards himself with a sip of water from his glass. I take a sip from mine, not because I’m thirsty, but because I’m relating to him. I steal another look at the mountainous Franco and his neighbour the emaciated Dieudonné. Franco boasts a single scar running from the top of the forehead to the end of the nose. Are his arms and legs similarly marked as part of the initiation ritual that protects him from flying bullets? Dieudonné’s brow is high and smooth as a girl’s, and his dreamy gaze seems fixed on the hills he has left behind. The dandy Haj, lounging on Franco’s other side, appears wilfully unaware of either of them.

‘Good morning, my friends! Are your eyes all turned towards me?’

He is so small, Salvo. Why is it that so many men of small stature have more courage than men of size?
Small as Cromwell Our Chief of Men was small, pushing out double the energy per cubic inch of everyone around him. Light cotton jacket, washable, as becomes your travelling evangelist. Halo of grizzled hair the same length all round: a black Albert Einstein without the moustache. And at the throat where the tie should go, the gold coin that Hannah has told me about, big as a fifty-pence piece:
it is his slave collar, Salvo. It tells us he is not for sale. He has been bought already, so bad luck. He belongs to the people of all Kivu, and here is the coin that purchased him. He is a slave to the Middle Path!

Yes, all our eyes are turned to you, Mwangaza. My own eyes also. I no longer need take refuge in my Perrier bottle while I wait for him to speak. Our three delegates, having afforded our Enlightener the African courtesy of not staring at him, are now staring at him for all they’re worth. Who is he? Which spirits guide him, what magic does he practise? Will he scold us? Will he frighten us, pardon us, make us laugh, make us rich, make us dance and embrace and tell each other all we feel? Or will he scorn us and make us unhappy and guilty and self-accusing, which is what we Congolese, and we half-Congolese, are threatened with all the time?—Congo the laughing stock of Africa, raped, plundered, screwed up, bankrupt, corrupt, murderous, duped and derided, renowned by every country on the continent for its incompetence, corruption and anarchy.

We are waiting for the rhythm of him, the arousal, but he keeps us waiting: waiting for our mouths to go dry and our groins to shrivel up—or that at least is what the secret child is waiting for, owing to the fact that our great Redeemer bears an unearthly likeness to our Mission’s pulpit orator Père André. Like André, he must glower at each member of his congregation in turn, first at Franco, then Dieudonné, then Haj and finally at me, one long glower for each of us, with the difference that I feel not just his eyes on me, but his hands as well, if only in my hyperactive memory.

‘Well, gentlemen! Since your eyes are now upon me, don’t you think you have made a pretty big mistake coming here today? Maybe Monsieur Philippe’s excellent pilot should have dropped you on a different island.’

His voice is too big for him, but true to my usual practice I render my French softly, almost as an aside.

‘What are you searching for here, I am asking myself?’ he thunders across the table at old Franco, causing him to grit his jaw in anger. ‘You are not searching for
me
, surely?
I
am not your fellow at all!
I
am the Mwangaza, the messenger of harmonious coexistence and prosperity for all Kivu. I think with my head, not with my gun, or my panga, or my penis. I don’t mess with cut-throat Mai Mai warlords like you, oh no!’ He transfers his scorn to Dieudonné. ‘And I don’t mess around with second-class citizens like the Banyamulenge here either, oh no!’—a defiant lift of the jaw at Haj—‘and I don’t mix with rich young dandies from Bukavu, thank you very much’—an insider’s smile nonetheless for the son of Luc his old comrade-in-arms and fellow Shi—‘not even if they offer me free beer and a job at a Rwandan-run goldmine—oh no! I am the Mwangaza, the good heart of the Congo, and honest servant of a strong, united Kivu. If that is the person you have truly come to see—well, just possibly—but let me think about it—maybe you have landed on the right island after all.’

The oversized voice descends to the confiding depths. Mine clambers down after it in French.

‘Are you by any chance a
Tutsi
, sir?’ he enquires, peering into the bloodshot eyes of Dieudonné. He asks the same question of each delegate in turn, then of all of them at once. Are they Tutsi? Hutu? Bembe? Rega? Fulero? Nande? Or Shi, like himself?

‘If so, will you please kindly leave the room now. Forthwith. Immediately. No hard feelings.’ He points histrionically at the open French windows. ‘Go! Good day to you, gentlemen! Thank you for your visit. And send me a bill, please, for your expenses.’

Nobody moves except the kinetic Haj, who rolls his eyes and peers comically from one to other of his incongruous comrades.

‘What’s stopping you, my friends? Don’t be shy, now! Your pretty aeroplane is still out there. It has two reliable engines. It is waiting to take you back to Denmark at no charge. Away with you, go home, and nothing will be said!’

Suddenly he is smiling a radiant, five-star, all-African smile that splits his Einstein face in two, and our delegates are smiling and chuckling with him in relief, Haj the loudest. Père André knew how to play that trick too: switch off the heat when his congregation is least expecting it, and make you grateful to him, and want to be his friend. Even Maxie is smiling. So are Philip, the Dolphin and Tabizi.

‘But if on the other hand you are from
Kivu
, from the north or the south or the middle’—the too-big voice reaches out to us in generous welcome—‘if you are a true God-fearing Kivutian, who loves the Congo and wishes to remain a Congolese patriot under one decent and efficient government in Kinshasa—if you wish to drive the Rwandan butchers and exploiters back across their borders one and all—then kindly stay exactly where you are. Stay, please, and talk to me. And to one another. And let us, dear brothers, identify our common purpose, and decide together how we can best pursue it. Let us tread the Middle Path of unity and reconciliation and inclusiveness under God.’

He stops, considers his words, is reminded of something, starts again.

‘Ah, but that Mwangaza is a dangerous separatist, you have been told. He has crazy personal ambitions. He wishes to break up our beloved Congo, and feed it piecemeal to the jackals across the border! My friends, I am more loyal to our capital city of Kinshasa than Kinshasa is to itself!’ A high note now, but we shall go higher, wait and see. ‘I am more loyal than Kinshasa’s unpaid soldiers who pillage our towns and villages and violate our women! I am so loyal that I want to do Kinshasa’s job better than Kinshasa ever did! I want to bring us peace, not war. I want to bring us manna, not starvation! To build us schools and roads and hospitals and give us proper administration instead of ruinous corruption! I want to keep all of Kinshasa’s promises. I even want to keep Kinshasa!’

He gives us hope, Salvo
.

She is kissing my eyelids, giving me hope. I have my hands round her sculptured head.

Can you not understand what
hope
means to people of the Eastern Congo?

I love you.

Those poor Congolese souls are so tired of pain they no longer believe in the cure. If the Mwangaza can inspire them with hope, everyone will support him. If not, the wars will go on and on and he will be one more bad prophet on their path to Hell.

Then let’s hope he gets his message over to the electorate, I suggest piously.

Salvo, you are a complete romantic. For as long as the present government is in power, any elections will be incompetent and totally corrupt. People who are not bought will vote on ethnic lines, results will be falsified and tensions will increase. First let us have stability and honesty. Then we may have elections. If you had listened to the Mwangaza, you would agree.

I’d rather listen to you.

Her lips leave my eyelids and look for more substantial fare.

And I suppose you know that the Monster used to carry a magic stick around with him that was too heavy for any mortal man to lift, except the Monster himself?

No, Hannah, that gem of knowledge escaped me. She is referring to the late and pitiful General Mobutu, supreme ruler and destroyer of Zaire and her only known hate-figure to date.

Well, the Mwangaza also has a stick. It goes with him everywhere, just like the Monster’s, but it is of a special wood chosen for its lightness. Anyone who believes in the Middle Path may pick it up and discover how easy is the journey to its ranks. And when the Mwangaza dies, do you know what will happen to this magic stick?

It will help him walk to Heaven, I suggest drowsily, my head upon her belly.

Don’t be facetious, please, Salvo. It will be placed in a beautiful new Museum of Unity to be built on the banks of Lake Kivu, where all may visit it. It will commemorate the day when Kivu became the pride of Congo, united and free.