Facing the Son, A Novel of Africa

by M L Rudolph

  The old woman pressed the pot on him again.

  Sally waved a hand. The old woman’s countenance darkened and she turned away.

  Sally led Matt through stalls bursting with fruit, vegetables, live meat bleating and clucking, past men waving machetes to draw attention to their freshly butchered fare. An overwhelming stench rose from a landing with fresh fish flopping in baskets next to docked and bobbing pirogues. A sweaty gray-haired cook worked a flat skillet, frying tranches of white fish in oil.

  Matt coughed with his hand to his nose. “Something else,” he said through his fingers. “Fletcher told me Karl registered with the embassy in Waga. So can’t Robert buy that info from someone inside the embassy? And if he does, isn’t all this rigmarole kind of, uh, pointless?”

  “Rigmarole?” Sally said.

  “Your false trail.”

  “Pointless? What do you suggest then? That we drive straight to Ouaga and just postpone our confrontation to another place and time?”

  “I don’t know what to suggest,” Matt said. “I’m just not sure why anyone would fall for your tricks.”

  “If Robert trusts that information from the Embassy, then yes, he might think that you are going to Ouaga.”

  “So you think he won’t trust the woman in the embassy.”

  “No. He will think we paid her to lead him to Ouaga.”

  “It’s so confusing,” Matt said, stroking his beard and looking out over the commotion of the busy river. “How do you ever get to the truth if you always start from the assumption that everyone is lying?”

  “Eh, eh,” the old woman caught up with them again, wheezing to catch her breath. Accompanying her, an obedient boy held a large red clay pot with intricate circular patterns etched around its belly.

  “And here’s a good example. No matter what I say, she doesn’t believe me.”

  “You think you are being polite. But she sees you show interest and thinks you will buy if she only shows you the right pot,” Sally said, as she brushed off the old woman with a rude clucking noise, her braids rustling with her refusal. “But whether or not you buy, monsieur, this is one old woman who will remember you were here.”

  Chapter 24

  After Ségou, Jacques jumped on an old road tracking the south bank of the Niger. No sooner had he reached a slow cruising speed than he abruptly abandoned the hard pack and turned sharply south into a rutted dirt trail that rattled over spine-jarring washboard.

  “What now?” Matt shouted over the roar of the road, his back complaining with shots of pain.

  —What are you doing? Sally snapped at Jacques, reaching across to slap his headrest. He leaned up and away from her rebuke.

  —Enough with your little idea, Jean-Louis said, assuming control. —We stay off the main road.

  —No.

  —Yes. We discussed it at the market.

  —I didn’t discuss anything. If we don’t leave a presence at Mopti.…

  —No. Do you hear me? We leave the road. No one sees the car from Côte d’Ivoire any more. End of story.

  Sally protested the change of plans to no avail, then tried a different tack. “This car is not for off road. We will break down. It is stupid to risk it.”

  “We will not break anything,” Jean-Louis asserted, holding firm as a sullen truce descended.

  Jacques slowed where the road narrowed to a single pair of tire ruts weaving between trees and brush. He honked at a pair of lumbering cattle, departed the ruts to avoid the cows, then resettled into the tracks of the uneven terrain.

  “One rock or hole, that is all it takes. It is completely stupid. We should have gone to Mopti, stayed to the river road. We don’t save anything by getting stuck and having to hike back to Ségou for help.”

  “We could break down going north, too,” Jean-Louis countered. “We lost too much time making all those pointless stops. We did it your way. Now we do it mine. Robert will go north to Mopti and get lost in the markets. That’s enough. By the time we get to Ouaga, Robert is at a crossroad between crazy and lost.”

  The car lurched, the undercarriage grabbed, and a dull rhythmic thudding started keeping time.

  Sally said nothing and directed her stony stare out the window. After the knocking persisted to the point of concern, Jacques stopped next to a shady tree and everyone got out to inspect the cause of the racket. Jacques crawled underneath and after a groan and a struggle, he slid out and tossed aside what resembled a mutilated rib cage of a small animal.

  —If we don’t go through Mopti, Robert will notice and drive directly to Ouaga, Sally asserted.

  —I don’t think so, Jean-Louis retorted. —We are done with your game. Only slows us down and makes it a longer drive.

  Sally glared at her uncle.

  —He will catch us on the road if we keep stopping.

  —I see that. She turned her attention to the mutilated rib cage.

  Back in the car no one spoke as Jacques drove a bit more slowly over the uneven trail. At one turn, at a steeply eroded section of road, he and Jean-Louis got out to heave a fallen tree limb out of the way.

  “Listen,” Jean-Louis eventually said within the brooding atmosphere. “We disagree about how to lose Robert. But we all agree that Robert must pay for what he did.”

  “I still don’t understand how this road trek makes him pay?” Matt said. “I get why you couldn’t go to the police in Mali.”

  “Because you were so kind to involve the army, perhaps?”

  Matt threw up his hands in frustration. “Okay. I got it wrong. Alright? In my country that’s what you do. If someone breaks the law, you turn them in. Let the courts take care of it. You don’t take matters into your own hands, raid their warehouse, and drop a piece of concrete on their head.” Matt turned to Sally. “And you? What do you think? Is that the right way to punish him for what he did to you?”

  Sally looked into her lap for a moment before she answered. “He came into the hotel toilet and threw me into the wall. I woke up with him inside me and his hands at my throat. I could barely breathe.”

  Jean-Louis snapped around with a look of pain.

  “He was too heavy, too strong. I tried to fight but he kept his hands on my throat.” She looked directly into Matt. “What if you were me? How would you want to punish him?”

  Matt felt revulsion. The last he saw the overgrown boy in the orange football jersey, Robert was senseless inside the warehouse. His sympathy then was clearly with the boy. What if he knew then what he knew now? Would he still have stopped Jean-Louis? Or would he have urged him on?

  “I’d want to rip his heart out,” Matt said. “But I wouldn’t do it. That’s why we have police. Laws. Courts. I’d see to it he was caught and punished.”

  “That’s your way,” Jean-Louis said. “It does not work that way everywhere. Not always in your country either.”

  “Maybe we’re not perfect, but we aren’t vigilantes. We don’t settle scores by killing people.”

  “You’re naïve.”

  Matt burned at the insult. “I came here to a strange town, strange country, to chase down my son. I may not speak the language, or understand you as well as I should, but I didn’t even get out of the airport before I was robbed. Your fellows in crime probably expect to never get caught. But they will be caught and they will be punished. Anyone who believes otherwise is what I’d call naïve.”

  “Alors!” Sally said. “That is what I told you, Jean-Louis. You let Le Croc bully you. You should have the strength to tell him no. And you should have told Monsieur Reiser the truth the moment he walked in the hotel.”

  Jean-Louis’s body tightened at Sally’s reproach. “I say no and the monsieur ends up on the street. No money. No place to stay. Would that have been better? And whether you agree or not, he got his passport and clothes and food.”

  “My uncle, the concièrge,” Sally said. “Everyone’s problem solver. Maybe sometimes you are helping the wrong people, Ti-Jean.”

  “You hav
e every right to be angry at me. I cannot undo the rape. I wish I had that magic, but I do not. All I can do is take revenge.”

  Chapter 25

  After a couple miles of broken road, Jacques turned off the rutted path on to blacktop heading away from the afternoon sun. Soon, dark clouds closed off view of the southeastern hills and the first drops of rain fell on the dusty windshield. Then a drizzle became a torrent that astonished the desiccated earth with its fury.

  Water quickly collected in the contours of the terrain. The Mercedes burst through puddles, blasting roostertails of water. The rain grew so heavy that the windshield on the passenger side dripped at the seam where Jean-Louis held up a cloth from the glove box. Trucks parked to sit out the storm.

  The road came to a tributary river churned dark from the effects of sudden runoff. As they drove across a modern steel bridge, Matt spotted the eroded remnants of earthen ramparts and wooden pilings mapping a former crossing.

  “Stop!” he yelled. “I saw something down there!”

  Jacques braked and the Mercedes fishtailed to a stop.

  —What are you doing? Jean-Louis snapped. —You almost sent us off the road. Keep going.

  “There it is again! A jeep. On its side. Someone’s waving out the window.” Matt wiped at condensation to get a better look.

  Sally turned to look out the rear. —Yes. I see it. Go back, Jacques.

  —No! Jean-Louis ordered. —No more stopping! Let one of the trucks handle it.

  —There is somebody back there.

  —No!

  “What are you waiting for? Back up,” Matt shouted.

  “We don’t have time,” Jean-Louis shouted back. “You don’t have anything to say about this. We keep going.”

  Jacques checked the mirrors. The rain pummeled the roof.

  —What are you doing? I said keep going.

  —I am backing up to take a look.

  “Thank you, Jacques,” Sally said.

  Matt continued wiping condensation from his window as the car reversed and came to a stop above the view of a tipped Land Rover. “There. See.”

  Jacques backed onto the shoulder.

  “I’m going down to see.” Matt buttoned up his vest and opened his door into the driven rain. Hunched over, hands shielding his eyes, he made his way across the road toward the top of the muddy ramp that once led to an old bridge.

  —Are you going to let him go alone? Sally said to Jean-Louis.

  Her uncle looked out at the violent storm, down at his royal blue kaftan, then back at Sally.

  —Shit, Jean-Louis said, and shoved his door open.

  The two rescuers stepped gingerly down the muddy slope toward the jeep toppled on to its side. They slipped in the mud and slid on their butts most the way down to the rear of the Rover.

  The hood pointed downhill, the passenger window open and upturned to the rain. The passenger door frame was crushed inward from an old accident.

  “Au secours!” a man’s voice yelled. A hand shot up through the window. “Over here!”

  Jean-Louis’s kaftan weighed heavily as he stood with his belly at the overturned roof and reached down into the window. The trapped man grabbed his hand and released a torrent of thank yous and mercis.

  Matt balanced in the mud at the undercarriage and hung on to the passenger window to look inside. A hulk of a man lay wedged by the driver seat and the door, one leg disappearing into pedals. It was the garlic-reeking American from the Embassy café who tried to interest Matt into “going halvsies” on a used Rover.

  “Kolarik?” Matt yelled over the rain. “You hurt?”

  “Of course I’m fucking hurt!”

  Jean-Louis worked his way through the mud to help Matt attack the damaged door. They fought the downpour and strained for solid grips on the handle to pull and pry.

  “No good,” Matt said, pausing for breath. The bent frame made it impossible to open the door.

  “I will climb in the back,” Jean-Louis shouted.

  The heavy rain sent rivulets of mud down the hill to the rear of the jeep where they oozed around the bumper and flowed downhill into the swollen river.

  “Locked,” Jean-Louis yelled from the rear door.

  Inside the jeep, a backpack, supplies, and clay pots lay scattered in the dark and puddling water. The injured Kolarik, holding the steering wheel for support, turned awkwardly to look up through his dark hair plastered across his face. “My leg’s fucking killing me.” He wiped his eyes. “I know you. From the café. Great. Now get me the hell outa here.”

  The rain pounded relentlessly. A gust slammed Matt, nearly toppling him until he grabbed the door handle for support, righting himself against the undercarriage.

  “What’s with your foot?”

  “Fucking floorboard’s rusted out.”

  “Watch out!” Jean-Louis yelled.

  A chunk of the ramp dissolved under the onslaught slamming a gush of reddish mud into the rear of the jeep. Matt held the door handle as his boots slipped and he kicked to keep his footing.

  “Watch out!” Jean-Louis screamed again. “There’s more.”

  An entire section of the ramp slipped, dangerously close to collapse. The streams of mud widened to flow with increased force. If the rain continued like this, the jeep was in danger of being washed into the river with Kolarik inside.

  Matt got his balance, let go of the handle, and took deliberate heavy steps to extract a rock from nearby.

  “Watch your eyes,” he yelled at Kolarik and struck the passenger side of the dual-pane windshield, over and again, until the glass cratered and fell inside.

  “What the fuck, man?” Kolarik brushed at the chunks of glass stuck to his wet clothes and beard.

  Matt climbed through the vacant space and dug his fingernails into the fabric of the passenger seat to turn around and position one mud-caked boot down on the bucket seat and the other against the small dash.

  “Watch it.” Kolarik angrily shoved at Matt’s muddy boot.

  Jean-Louis leaned his head inside the empty windshield for a look.

  “How the hell?” Matt yelled.

  “Don’t ask,” Kolarik yelled back.

  The car creaked and shifted toward the river.

  “Shit!”

  “Fuck!”

  “Merde!”

  “Come on, Jean,” Matt ordered. He grabbed Jean-Louis’s hand, pulled him partly through the opening so his hand could reach the clutch pedal. “Okay, now lean back and pull!”

  Then Matt wedged his butt up against the passenger seat and stepped on the brake pedal with all his weight, trying to bend it down and away from Kolarik’s trapped leg.

  “Can you move your foot?”

  The trapped man grimaced, placed both hands under his knee and shouted in pain as he pulled.

  The car creaked under the stress exerted by the three men.

  “Wait! Wait! Take a breath and let’s all go on my command,” Matt said, taking control.

  “You got a grip, Jean?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “You?”

  “Nothing better to do.”

  “Okay, now!”

  Jean-Louis grunted as he pulled up on the clutch pedal. Matt stamped on the brake pedal.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah, fuck!” Kolarik screamed in pain until he couldn’t take it anymore, then settled back against his door. “Fucking hurts like a sonofabitch.”

  Jean-Louis let go and shook his hand to get the feeling back, then held up his wrist for Matt to pull back his sleeve. He leaned farther inside and again gripped the clutch pedal.

  “Okay,” Matt directed. “Ready? Go!”

  All three men groaned under the relentless rain for an extended effort.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaah, fuck me on a Sunday afternoon!” The trapped man let go of his leg, breathing heavily from the effort, the rain sluicing in through the open spaces. “I almost got it. But it’s gonna be a fucking bloody stump by the time I get it out.” He blew his nose into his hand.
“Fuck me.”

  Matt looked at Jean-Louis. “Ready?” The two men with common purpose. “This time for the money!”

  Jean-Louis growled like a lion. Matt felt the clutch pedal bend under his extra exertion. Kolarik yelled one continuous “Fuuuuu-uuuu-uuuu-uuuuuu-uuuu-uuck,” until his leg popped free. Then he wailed in pain, his shoe lost somewhere below. His sock halfway off his foot and his ankle dripping blood.

  Jean-Louis let go with such suddenness that he fell backward out of the windshield into the mud. The jeep shifted downhill and began to tip over on to its roof.

  Matt shifted his weight then grabbed Kolarik by his baggy blue-jean shirt. “Now get your fat ass out that window.”

  The trapped man grabbed the steering wheel and pulled himself up past Matt and stuck his head out. “Shit, man. This thing’s sliding.” He put his hands on either side of the window frame and pulled himself forward to lean on his belly.

  Matt shifted his weight back on his lower foot and planted his upper boot squarely across Kolarik’s wide backside. “Get out!” He shoved hard, pushed the guy forward while Jean-Louis grabbed the blue jean shirt with both hands and pulled.

  Kolarik wiggled his ample hips through, then slithered forward, slipping and falling off the hood, landing on top of Jean-Louis in the mud with a splash, a growl, and a groan.

  Both men struggled to disentangle and crawl free from the slithering jeep, lighter now by their combined weight.

  Matt peered out the opening, took stock of his position, and grabbed the edges of the windshield frame as the jeep picked up speed. He angled his body through and pulled himself up. Gravity sucked him back but he held firm. He couldn’t simply fall out the window or he’d be carried along with the jeep as it tumbled into the river. He struggled to get one knee, then both knees through the window, then positioned a boot firmly at the edge of the windshield panel. Matt used the jeep’s momentum to leap free and fall on his belly with a heavy splat at the river’s edge.