He unbuckled the pistol from his belt and held it up. “I want to show you that I’m ready for the fight. Please believe me, this isn’t a toy. These bullets are real, and when we fire them it will be against imperialism. It will be on behalf of all black people. It will be on behalf of everyone who suffers domination. It will be on behalf of those white people who are our genuine brothers.”
Applause began again, but he raised his hand and said over it, “I want you to stand. Stand because you represent the people, and wherever you stand up, imperialism trembles. I want you to repeat that: When the people stand up, imperialism trembles!”
“When the people stand up, imperialism trembles!” People all around me screamed as they stood. I got on my feet too.
“Again!”
“When the people stand up, imperialism trembles!”
“Imperialism!” he called.
“Down with it!”
“Puppet regimes!”
“Down with them!”
“Racism!”
“Down with it!”
“Neocolonialism!”
“Down with it!”
“Dignity!”
“To the people!”
“Health!”
“To the people!”
“Power!”
“To the people!”
“La patrie ou la mort, nous vaincrons!” he called. “La patrie ou la mort, nous vaincrons!”
“La patrie ou la mort, nous vaincrons!” voices around me called back at him. Homeland or death, we will win!
“Merci, comrades,” he said, and left the podium. He was smiling as he came down the stage stairs, and as he closed the distance between us, I stared at him, captivated, clapping, pleasure radiating in and out of me in overwhelming waves as applause crashed around us.
Outside, Sam and the DSS agent forged a path through the crowd, Thomas following directly behind them, shaking as many of the hands extended to him as he could. He briefly stopped to talk in careful English to a girl of seven or so who was with her mother. I watched as he smiled down on the child, who had a beautiful head of hair: Her twists, adorned with hair bobbles and closed with white plastic barrettes, reminded me of the way my mother, and later Helene, used to do mine.
The second we were away from the crowd though, Thomas’s mood collapsed in on itself. We were on the other side of the street where the high-rises of the St. Nick projects unspooled along the whole block.
“Leave us in peace!” he said to the DSS agent, clearly looking to take his anger out on someone. His petulant streak was unpleasant; it burst the idealized vision of him I’d been cultivating during the speech. The agent ignored him.
When we arrived back to my block, the driver was parked at a hydrant in front of my building. Vincent opened the car door.
“We’re not going back yet,” Thomas firmly reminded him. “The tour.”
Vincent was obviously exhausted and I felt sorry for him. “You can rest in my apartment for a little bit before we start.”
Thomas looked at him. “Are you tired?”
“I’m fine,” Vincent said with a shake of his head.
“You look like you’re going to pass out,” the DSS agent said, speaking for the first time. “I can take you back to the hotel.” I wondered if he was trying to help me with my assignment.
“Yes, Vincent, go back. Sam, you go with Vincent.”
Sam said something in Mooré—it must’ve been an objection, because Thomas said, “I don’t want security hovering over my shoulder. The same goes for him.” He pointed at the DSS agent. “That isn’t the way I want to see this place.”
“I have to stay with you,” the agent said. “But I’ll keep my distance.”
Sam nodded at that, pacified. He opened the car door, removed a bag from the backseat, and gave it to Thomas. Then he and Vincent got into the car. Thomas started toward my stoop. I lagged behind for a second to tell the agent that I’d bring my automatic and a radio, and if there were any problems I’d call him.
“I’m hungry,” Thomas called from the sidewalk. “Are you ready?”
13
THE BAG SAM HAD GIVEN THOMAS held a change of clothes.
I was glad. He would’ve been absurdly conspicuous walking around Harlem in his uniform. He pulled the clothes from the bag and brought them with him toward the bathroom. As I waited for him in the living room, my eyes fell on the bag he’d left behind, sitting near a sofa leg. I went to it and glanced inside. I was hoping to find an itinerary. I wanted to know who he’d been meeting with in New York, but other than a small box, it was empty.
By all accounts, Thomas was a man of principle. When I’d suggested that we stay in my apartment, that I could cook for him, he must’ve heard a sexual subtext, because he’d quickly shook his head. I didn’t know how I’d meant the invitation, to be honest. It was a confusing situation: While I was attracted to him, I knew it was wrong to try and seduce him, because it was so clear to me that Ross wanted me to do so.
Returning to my seat, I called to him through the bathroom door and asked if he liked his hotel. He said he did and told me the name of the place he was staying downtown.
“Nice,” I said.
“The UN is paying for it,” he called back. “I wouldn’t have chosen a place so expensive. All of the CNR ministers are kept to a strict travel allowance of fifteen thousand CFA francs a day.”
I did some quick calculations—that was about thirty-six bucks. I asked, “Don’t they resent it?”
“They see the result. When the CNR came to power, we had a deficit of 695 million CFA francs. Two years later, in our first quarter, we had a surplus of a billion. That surplus is what I’m proudest of. My ministers might resent it, and the newspapers might attack me. But the men who do that don’t go out to the countryside and ask the six million peasants out there if they’re happy because of the new road we built, or the new school in their village, or the new clinic, or the new well.”
“And you stick to that allowance too?”
“I do,” he said, his voice getting louder as he stepped back into the living room. He looked great, wearing a pair of black pants and a high-collared cream-colored tunic.
“That’s a nice shirt,” I said, reducing the overwhelming thoughts crowding my mind to a compliment that seemed appropriate.
“It’s faso dan fani,” he said and added that the phrase translated roughly from Jula as handwoven cloth of the homeland. Wearing it was a way of supporting the local economy and embracing Burkinabè culture, he said, and he required the civil servants in his government to wear it at work. As he spoke, I felt like he was giving me a speech, and an authoritarian one at that—I understood the political purpose of the uniform, but in practice the idea rankled my American sense of personal freedom. And I was hoping I would’ve made more headway with him by then, but he was sermonizing to me just as he had the day before.
“Soft,” I said, and touched the fabric. I was buoyed by the fact that he let me do it for a little too long. If I was going to get anywhere with him, I would need to bypass the ideologue.
“What are we going to eat?” he asked after a few moments.
It was a good question. He seemed to want an authentic tour, a desire that, ironically enough, immediately makes whatever you’re going to show a person something of a performance.
Even though I knew it was a little ridiculous, I took him to Pan Pan.
We sat at a table beside the window. As he looked around, taking it all in, I worried that I’d made the wrong choice. I was relieved when he said he liked it. The waitress approached and put our menus down, and he glanced at his only briefly before tucking it between the condiments and asking me to order for him. I did. Once she’d gone, he spoke first: “I’m glad you called my attention to how tired Vincent was.”
“He s
eems like a nice kid.”
“He is.”
“You were a little rough on him.”
“He knows I expect a lot of him because he’s talented. He can take it. He’s my nephew. I’ve always been proud of him.”
“How did you like my speech today?” he added. “Did you learn something?”
I laughed. It was clear he wanted to argue and I was game—getting him to disagree with me might loosen him up.
“I already know all I need to about Communism.”
“You sound scared of it.”
“I used to be when I was a kid. Fidel was like the bogeyman. Now I just think it’s a proven failure.”
“After talking to you yesterday, I started to believe you weren’t as brainwashed as other Americans. Was I wrong?”
“I suppose so, if being brainwashed means having no memory of recent historical events.”
“There’s nothing inherently wrong with Communism. When it has failed it’s done so because the forces of imperialism were undermining it.”
I shrugged calmly. “That’s bullshit.”
He sat up, apparently about to object, but the waitress returned to our table then and put plates of food down. I’d ordered a couple of dishes for us to share.
“Thank you,” he said in English, his whole face lighting up. He’d only spoken two words, but they’d manage to arrest her. She smiled brightly.
“That’s no problem,” she said, and I knew what she was feeling because I’d felt it too.
It wasn’t enough to call what he had magnetism. The way he could make you feel. It was like he saw a version of you that was superior to the version you saw of yourself. It was very generous. And it was inspiring, that reminder of the better angels of your nature.
“How do you like it?” I asked as he tried the waffles.
“Most of this food is too rich.” He pointed to a plate with his spoon. “But I like this one.”
“The grits,” I said, and he nodded, repeating the word in English. We chatted more, mostly about the neighborhood, and he started to relax. I felt like he was finally talking to me and not an audience. When we finished our meal, the waitress returned to the table.
“Who’s this?” she said to me as she put our check down.
“A friend.”
“Mm-hmm.” Speaking to Thomas she added, “I see her in here a lot, but I don’t never see her laughing like that.”
I wasn’t happy that she’d recognized me. But when I translated what she’d said he beamed at her—I was surprised by how pleased the comment made him. Still, I wanted to leave quickly. I shrugged on my jacket, and we exited the restaurant.
As we walked along Lenox I watched him take in the ramshackle beauty of the tenement buildings around us. We past the Schomburg Center and I thought of Phillip. I’d learned a lot about him in our short literary conversation, so I asked Thomas if he’d read any good books lately. He smiled at the cliché and said, “I can’t tell you.”
“Are you serious?”
He laughed. “I don’t like to say what I’ve read. That’s how you disclose the most about yourself. I never make notes in a book or underline passages either. That’s even more revealing.”
“Thomas…”
“Yes.”
“I think you might be a little out of your mind.”
He laughed again, a sharp, honest noise. “You’re very funny.”
“Glad you think so.”
“You have a very American sense of humor.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Sarcastic.”
“Is that a compliment?”
He smiled and walked on without answering.
“Fair enough,” I said to his silence. I don’t know if it’s true that I’m funny. But I do feel sometimes like I’ve been trapped in an absurdist’s fever dream, and that if I couldn’t find a way to see humor in our lives, I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed.
“Is everyone in your cabinet as paranoid as you are?” I asked him. “Does Blaise also keep his books locked up?”
He shook his head. “Blaise and I have our differences.”
“Is that why he didn’t come to the rally?”
“What?”
“You seemed upset earlier, and he wasn’t there today. I thought maybe you’d had an argument.”
“I asked him to return to Ouaga early to attend to some business.”
“What kind?”
“Why are you asking?” he said, suddenly curt.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be intrusive.”
He softened. “Blaise and I don’t see eye to eye all the time. We spar. But it’s all right. I need him because he’s honest with me. And even though we don’t agree, we always speak to each other from a place of respect.”
“Like brothers,” I said.
“Exactly. He is my brother. He used to come with me to my parents’ house for family dinners, at least once a week, and they love him like he’s one of their own.”
We continued south. The leaves were turning and the street was busy. I watched Thomas observe the scene around him and glance at two elderly women at a bus stop, both of them wearing dresses and matching hats. We walked west on 125th Street, where I pointed out the Apollo and my gym, and on the corner of Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, I led us in the direction of the Hotel Theresa. I said, “This is where Castro was staying.”
“When?”
“What do you mean when?” We exchanged a look. “When he gave the speech you quoted yesterday. The UN had organized a block of rooms for Castro and his delegation in a luxury hotel in Midtown, the Shelbourne. At the last minute he decided to come up here instead.”
“Why?”
“My father says it was because he wanted to be up here, around Latino and black people. People who looked like Cubans. He thought he’d be treated better. But I’ve also heard that the Shelbourne’s management asked him to pay cash up front, expecting the delegation to cause damage. And that made him angry. He thought the UN had talked them into it to harass him.”
We stood side by side on the sidewalk, looking up at the marquee. I glanced over and saw that he was smiling. Maybe he was picturing it: Castro waving down at a sea of cheering New Yorkers, many of them black.
“A lot of people knew he was up here. He came out on the balcony a few times to wave hello.”
He turned to face me and looked into my eyes. “Do you remember that? You must’ve been young.”
“No, but I heard the story a lot when I was growing up. My father worked crowd control in front of the hotel.”
“He’s a cop?”
“He was. Retired now.”
“Why’d he become one?”
“People ask me that all the time. A lot more than they would if he was white, that’s for sure.”
“Of course. There are two systems of law in your country, and the one designed for black people was created to oppress them. It’s reasonable to ask why a black man would want to support that.”
I nodded.
“It must be hard to be a black cop in this country. Most of them probably wonder at some point if they’re fighting for the right thing.”
“Most of them probably do. He never forgot he was black though. I think if you asked him he’d tell you he tried to do right by us while working within the system.” The words were out of my mouth before I could catch myself. I was being more truthful about my own motivations than I’d meant to be.
“Did he actually change anything?”
“No. He kept trying to so they forced him to retire.”
I’d said it as if I were joking, but it was true, more or less; he understood that and laughed bitterly.
“It made sense for him. He became a cop because he was a soldier. And because more than color wa
s at issue.”
“Like what?”
“Like family. Like the obligation he had to us. It was a good middle-class job for a black man to come back home to after the air force.” Obligation. I thought of the promise I’d made Helene.
“What did your grandfather do?”
“He was a grocer.”
“Why didn’t your father follow him into that business?”
I thought for a moment. “I don’t know. But my father made the right choice. We grew up with a little money, and that put us…not exactly ahead, but it put us somewhere. And on top of that I was lucky. I know some people who had really bad luck. I think Pop was right to take the job he did.”
“He could’ve raised a family on a grocer’s salary.”
“I know,” I said, a little testily.
“I don’t mean to attack you, or the way you grew up. I’m asking because my father did the same thing, and I’ve never been able to understand it.”
“He was a soldier?”
Thomas nodded. “In the Second World War. He fought on behalf of the Mossi chief of Tema, in place of his son.”
“Why?”
“Because his family was allied with the chief.”
I nodded despite not understanding what that meant. “When mine enlisted, his recruiter told him there wouldn’t be another war, not after World War II. He fought in Korea. He was a radio operator.”
“Was he really?”
“What? Yes.”
The question made me wonder if he thought I was making up a biography that aligned with his. We really did have a lot in common though, odd synchronicities that a part of me now wants to believe had a deeper meaning. He was a Catholic, like Agathe. I very nearly blew my cover when I learned he had a sister named Marie and that we shared a birthday, having forgotten for a moment that he knew me by an alias.
American Spy Page 15
