by James Steel
‘Sophie Cecil-Black, pleased to meet you.’
‘Bilal Fadoul, my pleasure.’
As he stretches out his hand to shake, she sees he has thick black hairs on his wrist with a chunky gold Rolex and a small string of ebony worry beads around it.
‘Ah yes, the two of you are the right height for each other but not me, eh?’ he says looking up at them and laughing. Alex and Sophie laugh politely as well, trying to ignore the assumption he has just made.
‘Good, now let me get you a drink. Hazem! Get me a new bottle and two glasses.’
The cowed youth grabs a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and two highball glasses full of ice and gives them to his father. Bilal cracks the cap on the JD with relish; half fills them and hands them over. ‘I’ll leave the water to you.’
Alex takes his drink and looks slightly confused. ‘Thanks …I thought you were Muslim?’
Bilal laughs. ‘Ah, no, not all Arabs are Muslims. We’re Ishfaqi.’ He gestures to the community of people around him. ‘We live all over the Middle East, we’re a sect, a bit like Druze and Alawites – you know, a mixture, a bit of Christianity, a bit of Islam, a bit of whatever. We like to think we take the best of all worlds.’ He looks at his whiskey and grins, clinks glasses with theirs and knocks back a slug.
Sophie takes a large glug, coughs and laughs. ‘Oh gosh.’
Alex shoves some water in his and offers the jug to her, grinning facetiously. ‘Bit strong for you, dear?’
‘Yes, I think I will, actually.’
Bilal licks his lips, savouring the booze. ‘Yes, it’s this, you see.’ He pulls a chunky gold symbol on a chain out of the mat of black hair in his shirtfront. ‘It’s Ishfaqi in Arabic, you know I have it on my trucks? It means compassion.’
‘Oh, yes, we’ve seen it.’ Alex and Sophie both nod.
Bilal looks slyly at Alex. ‘I think you have met Ishfaqi before, heh? Remember the Dark Heart Prophecy, eh?’
Alex’s face freezes at the mention of a painful piece of his past but Bilal breezes on, ‘Ishfaqi believe that God acts through certain people in this world, his saints. You are one of those people, Colonel.’
He finally registers Alex’s guarded look and says apologetically, ‘OK, never mind then. That’s all history.’ He flaps a hand.
Sophie’s acute gaze flicks between the two of them but she doesn’t say anything.
‘OK, let’s go and meet some people. Come on, this is my wife, Rashida. Darling, say hello to Colonel Devereux.’
The woman in the black and gold dress looks up, slightly flustered from doing her daughter’s tiara, and smoothes her voluminous dyed blonde hair into place. ‘Oh, yes, hello. My husband says you’re the man who is making us all safe now.’
Alex looks embarrassed and Sophie helps things along with a cheery, ‘Yes, he’s such a hero, isn’t he?’ She rests a hand patronisingly on his arm and beams at them before turning to talk to Mrs Fadoul.
Bilal looks at him with a twinkle of humour in his eyes. ‘OK, so come and meet people.’ He looks around him and claps an arm around the shoulders of a man next to him. He’s fifty, short and lean with a clipped moustache, grey hair and an erect posture.
‘Ah, yes, another military man. Colonel Devereux, this is Captain Mahmood Bashoor, the head of my air force.’ Bilal chuckles and winks. ‘Mahmood was a captain in the Syrian air force but now he flies my helicopters for me, I usually keep them at my refinery in Goma.’
Alex smiles and chats to Mahmood about his experience in Kivu. He’s been there for ten years and knows a lot of useful things about flying helicopters in the province.
After a while, Alex moves on and sidles up to Sophie, muttering, ‘I think the JD is beginning to get to me – can we get something to eat?’
‘Yes, good idea.’
They head to the barbeque and fill up their plates with roast lamb, roast vegetables and couscous, then choose a table overlooking the party and sit down.
‘So what’s all this Dark Heart Prophecy stuff then, eh?’ She narrows her eyes at him.
Alex puts down his fork and finishes his mouthful. ‘Look, I don’t want to sound like a complete dickhead but can we just not talk about that, please?’
‘Oh, I suppose it’s classified, is it?’
Alex just looks at her pleasantly before picking up his fork once more and gesturing at her plate. ‘This lamb’s good, isn’t it?’ He sticks another piece in his mouth and chews it with a satisfied look.
She rolls her eyes. ‘Well, these Ishfaqi seem to think you’re the bee’s knees?’
Alex looks doubtful. ‘Hmm, I really don’t know much about them. If they want to think that I’m some sort of saint then I’m not going to disabuse them. I can do with all the help I can get in Kivu at the moment. Anyway, what the hell, they throw a good party.’
Bilal comes over to check they are OK and plonks himself down next to Sophie. He seems very taken with her and asks about her work so she explains about her football charity outreach activity and Bilal suddenly lights up and says, ‘Ah! I’ve got some goalposts I can let you have. I’ve got a pile of them in a warehouse in Nairobi, they’re good, proper size ones, and have really strong aluminium frames.’
‘Oh, thank you very much.’
‘What’s your email address? I’ll tell Mahmood to deliver them wherever you want by chopper.’ He waves casually down the lawn at his two aircraft, clearly loving the chance to show them off.
Once everyone has had enough to eat, there is a crackling on a PA system and Bilal stands up on the stage under the disco glitter ball with a microphone and addresses everyone.
‘OK, thank you, thank you. So now it’s time for Hazem’s ceremony. We have to do this in Arabic but don’t worry, we’ll start dancing soon.’
He hands the mike over to an old man with a long white beard who wears a black robe and headdress like an Orthodox priest. Hazem comes awkwardly onto the stage with his male family members and they say prayers over him in Arabic.
Alex and Sophie can’t understand a word but they both sit and look around fascinated. Sophie leans over to him and says behind her hand, ‘This is just bizarre. I can’t believe we’re in Congo, it feels like we’re in Beirut.’
He meets her eye and nods. ‘I know and I’m supposed to fighting a war, not having fun.’
The ceremony ends and a Lebanese band gets onto a platform at the back of the stage with small hand drums, reed clarinets and lutes and begins belting out dance numbers with a thudding beat, wailing pipes and vocals over the top.
Sophie grins and starts wobbling her head from side to side in a belly dancer imitation.
She pokes Alex. ‘Come on, let’s go!’
He holds his hands up defensively. ‘Look, I just don’t dance, OK?’
‘Oh, come on!’
More cajoling has no effect so she mutters, ‘God, you men are so crap sometimes,’ and gets up and walks over to the stage. People join together in long chains with their arms around each other’s shoulders and dance a debke, alternately sidestepping and then dipping down or kicking out their legs. The men get their worry beads out and whirl them around over their heads and the women ululate loudly.
Sophie looms over everyone in her heels but is welcomed into a line and makes a complete mess of the timing. Bilal’s six-year-old daughter, Jamila, comes over in her white flouncy dress and tiara to help her and they stand at the side of the dance floor and practise.
Alex is enjoying himself on the terrace, eating baklava and sipping some excellent red wine when Jamila and Sophie grab him from behind. The six year old is not interested in excuses and two soft little hands get hold of his index fingers and pull hard. She says in French, ‘Come on, mon Colonel, let’s dance!’
He is dragged onto the dance floor and pushed into a line of dancers to much applause. After a while he actually gets the hang of it and can’t help grinning from ear to ear. He is surrounded by people whirling worry beads over their heads, shouting out the lyrics to
the song in Arabic with its heavy thudding rhythm and chaotic wail of pipes. His line passes Sophie’s and he sees her head thrown back, her face flushed with laughter and alcohol, alternatively dipping down and kicking her long legs out with gusto.
Later that night, two very drunk, laughing guests wobble back down the lawn towards the helicopter, leaning on each other.
‘What time d’ya call this then?’ Col mutters coming out of the dark towards them.
Sophie is genuinely apologetic. ‘Oh, S’arnt Major, thank you so much for staying up for us. You’re such a sweetie, we’re so sorry.’ She kisses him on the cheek and he can’t maintain his anger any more but shrugs and looks at Alex.
‘Sorry, matey, got a bit carried away in there. You know, business relationships …’
They clamber into the troop bay and Alex squeezes into a bucket seat next to Sophie, feeling her leg pressed against his.
Once they are back on the helipad Col rapidly dismisses the squad and hurries off to his barracks.
Alex walks Sophie back up to her bungalow and there is the obligatory awkward pause outside her front door.
‘Oh, I’ve got your tie,’ she remembers and unlocks her door. ‘Come in.’
Chapter Forty-Three
Secretary of State Patricia Johnson has expensive blonde hair, shrewd eyes and a habit of holding her head high. She’s in her mid-fifties but looks trim and energetic in her dark blue trouser suit.
Under Secretary of State John Ciacola looks at her across the huge desk in her office in the State Department building in Washington DC, hoping he’s not going to get a grilling.
He doesn’t subscribe to the usual male misogynist view of her as a ball-breaking, lesbian Communist – she may be a female Democrat but she’s married to a former President and is always polite. However, he still can’t get away from the feeling of sitting in his high school principal’s office.
It’s 22nd June and this is the first face-to-face meeting they’ve been able to have since the peace conference in Kivu finished on 7th June; they’ve both been travelling a lot. He knows that Johnson takes a very personal interest in Kivu because of the issue of sexual violence against women and has done a lot of work to secure the three UN resolutions against it. He also knows that things are not going according to plan in the province, but isn’t sure how to break it to her.
Johnson has one hand resting on her desk and her large executive chair pushed back from it. She looks at him with her sharp blue eyes and says, ‘So what’s your feel for the guy, John?’
‘Err, Rukuba is …’ He takes a deep breath and sits back in his chair. ‘It’s hard to say really. He’s very bright, he’s very talented, speaks English, French, Swahili. He’s very charismatic, a great performer – he played his role very well in the negotiations. He’s just …’
‘What?’
Ciacola pauses. ‘He’s just too clever, too charismatic. I can’t put my finger on it, there’s something about the way he can turn it on and off like a light. It’s too controlled, too easy for him, almost like he’s laughing at people.’
Johnson frowns. ‘That sounds a little extreme, John.’
He shrugs. ‘Yeah, you’re right, maybe it is. I just don’t know what makes this guy tick; I think that’s what’s bugging me. I mean, he has popped up out of nowhere, heading this Kivu People’s Party which we know very little about. I’ve worked in a lot of failed states and the idea that you can have people in them who’ve been involved in politics for decades who are just squeaky-clean, apple-pie democrats is just naïve. I mean, look at Karzai.’
Her eyes narrow onto his. ‘Our valued Afghan partner?’
‘Well, yes, he talked a great show at the Berlin conference in 2001 when we went in, everybody loved him, spoke good English and was charming – but look what a corrupt scumbag he’s turned out to be.’
She drops her eyes to her desk and refrains from passing comment on Ciacola’s undiplomatic phrasing. She knows that he is right, Karzai has become a complete liability.
‘The other guy Rukuba reminds me of is Karadzic.’
‘Oh, come on, John, he’s not a genocidal maniac.’
‘No, but I worked with Karadzic in Yugoslavia. The guy was a blast, one of the funniest, most charismatic people I’ve ever met.’
‘Hmm.’
Johnson looks out of the window at the neat green trees and lawns of the government district.
‘OK, so that’s the person – but what about his policies?’
‘Well, that could go either way. Rukuba was careful to say all the right things to us about democracy but equally he didn’t make any binding commitments. I mean, he has got the Chinese on his back the whole time and they sure as hell won’t want to put that much money in and not have it directed by a one-party state.’
Johnson nods and Ciacola continues. ‘He’s got this policy of Kivuan nationalism that he says he wants to implement but again he didn’t give any details.’
‘I don’t like the word nationalism.’
‘No, neither do I, but maybe he just needs to build up a support base for himself against the Chinese so he can implement democracy against their wishes?’
‘Maybe.’
‘We’ll just have to see how his national consultation exercise goes.’
‘So what’s your overall conclusion?’
‘Well, I think I’ve been a bit too pessimistic really. To be fair, they have ended the FDLR reign of terror in the province and all armed groups have signed up to a peace deal that is actually working. So let’s be positive about it – we have at last after decades of war got peace in the province.’
Johnson looks at him shrewdly. ‘Just not the sort of peace that we want?’
Ciacola nods.
She folds her hands on the desk and looks at him fixedly. ‘Well, John, it is up to us to make sure that we do get it.’
‘Look, do you mind if I don’t stay tonight? I just need to get some sleep.’
‘No, that’s fine, I know you’re an old man.’
Sophie grins at Alex across the table. He’s rubbing his eyes with one hand but manages to laugh.
It’s 28th June and they have been seeing each other for a week now since Mr Fadoul’s party. Sophie has just cooked dinner for them in her little bungalow. She looks at Alex across the remains of their dinner, lit by a candle stub in an old Primus beer bottle and thinks, ‘God you look tired.’ He has a greyish pallor and marks like bruises over his cheekbones but somehow it is more attractive seeing him look vulnerable.
She gets up, pulls her chair round to his side of the table, puts her arm around him and rests her head on his shoulder. He leans his head on hers and they stay like that for a minute in silence.
He’s been surprised at how affectionate she is; he’s not very good at it himself but he likes it and enjoys her company. He always finds that women need to engage the gears of his mind before they turn his heart over and she has done that and mixed it up with a lot of irreverent humour. He’s very fond of her and has a giddy feeling that a fun relationship is about to tip over into something more.
‘I like your hands,’ she says peering at them on the table. They are large but neatly proportioned with a sprinkling of black hair on the back.
‘Hmm.’
‘What did you do there?’ She points at the little finger on his left hand, half of which is missing. He isn’t going to tell her how he lost it in Russia and just mutters, ‘DIY accident.’
Something in his voice doesn’t sound right and she lifts her head from his shoulder and cranes round to look him in the eye. But he obviously doesn’t want to talk about it and she is too tired to make an issue of it so she lets it go and puts her head back down.
‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ he asks after a while.
‘Oh, those football goalposts that Mr Fadoul promised have arrived and I’ve got to get them sent out to the out stations.’ She’s working with Fang and other NGOs to set up a network of demilitarisation and
training centres across the province. ‘They’ll be good for helping with outreach work, it all helps keeping the men out of trouble.’
As the militias are being disarmed the problem they are now facing is keeping the thousands of young men in the province occupied and getting them into jobs as fast as possible before they get into crime or start causing political trouble.
‘What about you, what are you doing?’
‘Um.’ He has to think for a moment to remember; being with Sophie has become a delightful retreat from the pressures of his job.
‘Urgh,’ he groans as he remembers and then considers how much he ought to tell her. ‘This is not for public distribution, OK?’
She nods her head on his shoulder.
‘No, I’m serious.’
‘Promise.’
He takes a deep breath and puffs his out cheeks. ‘Well, we’ve got this stupid bloody argument going on between Fang and Rukuba at the moment and I’m in the middle of it.’
‘What, about democracy?’
‘No.’ Alex shakes his head wearily. ‘I think that that has fallen by the wayside.’
‘Really?’ She sits up and looks at him in alarm.
‘Well, Rukuba says he’s doing this national consultation exercise thing but when I asked him about it recently he basically said it was the national anthem competition …’
‘Oh for God’s sake.’
‘Hmm, he says he’s sort of communing with his people.’
‘Oh, that’s bollocks!’
Alex nods. ‘Yes, I know, but what can I do about it? I’m not going to tell the blokes to go and arrest Rukuba, am I? And the Yanks are on my case again about it, Ciacola was on the phone today about Johnson’s visit …’
‘She’s coming here? You didn’t tell me!’
‘Well,’ Alex looks evasive, ‘I did say this was not for public distribution. The American Secretary of State doesn’t always like to advertise her movements around the world.’
