Facing the Son, A Novel of Africa

by M L Rudolph

  Robert didn’t answer, but grew angrier at the apparent lack of respect and steered his glare to Matt, sitting like a prim student, bare legged in his short tunic, blood collecting down his shins. Rather than try to penetrate the stupid glare of another American, he stormed out the back door to the courtyard, yelling for Jean-Louis as he disappeared.

  Red Jersey took advantage of the moment by pulling Sally down to her knees and pointing his pistol at Amadou. Jacques and Matt jumped up in protest. Red Jersey jerked his weapon at the two of them, back and forth, the barrel alternating between their chests, and twisted Sally’s neck until the pair sat back down.

  —Who else lives here? he asked Amadou, who retained his dignity in the face of the threat, respecting the power of the gun if not the man.

  —My wives and my sons.

  —Where are they and how many?

  —I have three wives and fourteen sons.

  —Where are they? He waved the weapon as he spoke, a firm grip on Sally.

  —They are everywhere.

  —I mean here. Who is here and where are they?

  —Let her go, Amadou said defiantly. —She has done nothing to you.

  —Where are they? The slapper pulled back on Sally’s braids, making her grunt in pain. Desperation crept into his voice.

  Before this standoff resolved itself, Robert stormed back into the room and threw down a heap of wet clothes. —Where is he? Then he saw the gun pointed at Amadou. —Stop that! And when Red Jersey didn’t immediately react, he screamed, —Stop it! Now!

  Red Jersey lowered his gun then threw Sally forward at Robert’s feet where she groaned as she caught herself with her palms on the gritty floor.

  Matt rose to help her but Robert jumped between them and laughed at the sight of the tall American in the undersized tunic. He reached over to feel Matt’s sewed on pocket bulging with his passport pouch and money.

  Matt slapped Robert’s hand with such ferocity that the sound froze the room. “Don’t touch me,” he demanded, and raised a fist.

  All eyes on him, Robert pushed his bandage back in place above his eye, then reached over again to pat the American.

  “Touch me and I’ll tear your face off.” Matt presented a picture of defiance, determined to draw a line in the sand at everything he suffered since his arrival. Goal line stand. Not another inch. He’d seen Sally abused again, thrown to the floor, and disposed of like trash. This was no matter for cross-cultural understanding, no interpreter required. Sally’s treatment showed a lack of humanity in any language and in any culture. Matt stepped up to the here and now—gun or no gun—and held his ground.

  Robert let out a nervous laugh and took a second look at Matt. —Nice legs, he said, to make it a joke.

  Then before Robert could reassert himself, the front door slammed into one of his men and the sudden intrusion threw the room into a panic.

  Red Jersey leveled his handgun at a shocked teenage boy who, at the sight of the barrel pointed at him, dropped a plastic bag at his feet and threw up his arms.

  —Munir. Amadou immediately called the boy. —It is okay. Be still.

  Robert seized control and greeted the intruder as if he was expected. —Ah, Munir. He opened his arms and walked past Red Jersey forcing him to lower his gun. —Come in, Munir. Come in. He picked up the plastic bag from the floor and looked inside. —Come from the market? He took the frightened and confused boy by the elbow and handed him back his bag. —Take these and stand here. All eyes on the boy as Robert moved him away from the door. —Be smart and stay here.

  Munir looked at his father, who discreetly nodded assent.

  —And you. He took a handful of jersey from his man by the door and shoved him toward the window. —Stay out of sight and tell us next time BEFORE anyone comes.

  Amadou kept his eyes on his son. Matt looked over at Sally where she had crawled to sit beside a small wooden table, her kaftan pulled down to cover her legs. Jacques fixed on Red Jersey. Kolarik scratched at his wound and grimaced, the wound openly oozing blood down his leg.

  Robert suddenly and viciously kicked the wooden table beside Sally. The doctor jumped nervously in his seat. Sally threw her arms over her head for protection.

  “Hey, buddy. Take it easy,” Kolarik yelled.

  —Where is he? Robert demanded of Sally. —I want him! I want him now! One of you is going to tell me where he is.

  But no one did.

  Robert looked at the tight-lipped figures arranged around him and then down at Sally in the corner, holding her knees.

  —Now use your gun, he ordered Red Jersey. —I want you to shoot him if anyone moves. He jerked his head toward the still standing figure of Matt. —Shoot him in those pretty legs if anyone disturbs me.

  Then he grabbed Sally’s kaftan at the neck and pulled her up. —Where is your uncle? He shoved her up to the wall. She kicked and slapped but Robert was too strong. Sally fought, but he cut her off with a hand to her throat. She choked as he pulled her gown above her hips and forced his hand between her legs.

  He put his lips to her ear, and said, —Where is Jean-Louis?

  She remained mute. Her eyes sharp as murder.

  Jacques jumped up. Drew the attention of Red Jersey.

  Matt looked at the pistol, finger inside the narrow trigger guard. He checked Red Jersey’s red-rimmed eyes and gauged his chances.

  —There are more, the lookout man at the window yelled. —Two more. Coming to the door.

  Robert stopped, one hand at Sally’s throat, the other between her legs.

  —Stand back from the window, you idiot. He let go of Sally and she slumped to the floor, gasping for air, hands at her neck, legs exposed.

  —Shoot them all if anyone makes a noise, he ordered. He motioned for Munir to step back and away from the door.

  The room stank of tension. All focus on the entrance.

  —They carry bags.

  Everyone waited. Only the sound of Sally’s strained breathing. Red Jersey pointed his pistol at Jacques, then at Matt, inviting them to move.

  The front door swung into the room.

  At the same moment, the door to the rear courtyard burst open. Jean-Louis, ghost-like in his mud-encrusted clothes and hair, flew at Robert as two men rushed in the front door. Jacques leapt from his chair. A shot punctuated the mêlée. Matt cut the legs out from the distracted Red Jersey and drove him to the floor. He felt Kolarik’s weight land on top of him. Another shot blasted shards of plaster and wood from a wall.

  Groans and screams. Bodies writhing on the floor. Cries of pain. Confusion.

  Jean-Louis stood up in the center of the room and fired into the ceiling. A shower of dust fell. He held Red Jersey’s gun aloft and commanded a halt. The struggle ended as briskly as it started.

  Robert lay on his stomach next to the broken wooden table.

  Red Jersey squirmed. Matt twisted his arm behind his back and Kolarik sat across his legs.

  Jacques immobilized his man with his arm around his neck. The two men who burst in the front door, sons of Amadou, overwhelmed the thug they met and had him pressed into the corner of the room.

  In the middle of it all, Sally stood up, stepped over Robert’s inert body, and walked out the front door without looking back.

  Chapter 30

  Two Toyota pickups turned into Amadou’s grounds and stopped beside Robert’s Renault. A gendarme in army green with black arm patch jumped out of the lead truck followed by young men in street clothes sporting green berets. Two of the young men carried carbines.

  Robert and his three thugs slouched against the front of the main building guarded by Jacques and Amadou’s sons. Robert, without his head dressing, kept wiping blood out of his eyes. Red Jersey held his wrist and glared defeated into the dirt along with the other two mecs.

  Groups of onlookers gathered at the crossroads to watch the arriving gendarmes.

  Jean-Louis kept Red Jersey’s pistol in plain view where he and Amadou stood to welcome the se
nior gendarme. The officer respectfully listened to Amadou, then ordered his men to stand the gang up against the wall and turn their pockets inside out.

  Robert wiped the blood from his face while being searched. One of the young soldiers, annoyed that he didn’t keep his hands up, rifle-butted him in the small of the back where he found a bone-handled knife that he confiscated. The soldiers also found wads of francs and dollars, passports, ammo clips, and the keys to the Renault. The senior gendarme tossed the keys to Amadou and kept everything else.

  The gendarmes then shoved the four men from Abidjan into the back of one of the pickups.

  As Robert and his thugs were driven away, Matt noticed Sally at the Mercedes. He grabbed a bottle of water from the trunk and took it to her. “Can I do anything?” he said, though he didn’t really know what to do, how to help her. If she was in shock. Or if she was in pain.

  She flinched at his question, staring vacantly, and didn’t answer. He handed her the bottle as Jacques walked up behind him to ask after his cousin.

  —I prefer to be left alone, she told him.

  “What does she want?” Matt asked.

  “To be alone,” Jacques translated.

  Matt wanted to do something, anything, to comfort her, but he could see he wasn’t wanted.

  Two gun shots cracked behind him. A woman by the road shrieked and the crowd of onlookers registered jittery shock at the reports.

  Jean-Louis, pistol in hand, stood over Robert’s Renault, hiss coming from the grill.

  Amadou ran at Jean-Louis with his arms in the air. —What are you doing?!

  Jean-Louis kept the gun pointed at the jeep as if deciding whether it needed another bullet for good measure. The enraged Amadou decided for him by heaving up the hood to inspect the damage.

  “What the hell’d you do that for?” Matt said.

  “Because I don’t want it back on my tail.” He threw the gun in the dirt at Matt’s feet. Disgusted. “And I’m not a killer, whatever you may think. But there’s only so much I can do.”

  Everyone dealt with the aftermath of the clash differently. Matt occupied himself by taking the damp clothes Robert dumped in the living room and spreading them flat in the best sun he could find in the courtyard. Then he helped Munir scrub blood from the sofa, working up a determined sweat in an effort to remove as much of the stain as he could. When he finished, he took the dirty rags to the courtyard trough and after rinsing them felt compelled to keep cleaning. He remembered Sally scrubbing the Mercedes before she was dragged out and brutalized and took his rags out front to finish what she started.

  All that Matt wanted from this trip was to fly in, find Karl, and fly out. He hadn’t given any thought to Africa as a place where people lived, loved, and struggled to survive. He expected to pass through hotel and airport, to find Karl, and depart. But here he was, carrying a handful of soggy rags under a stark African sky to scrub river mud from the interior of a road weary Mercedes sedan in a place called Bla.

  And there was nothing else Matt would rather do at that moment than scrub that mud from that backseat. Because if he didn’t clean the back seat of that car in this place called Bla, he knew he couldn’t live with himself. He had to make up for what he failed to do. However small the gesture of cleaning the car, he would start there. Do the best job he could. And look for another opportunity later to leave behind something of value.

  As he walked to the car he saw Sally at the open trunk arguing with Jean-Louis. Or so it appeared.

  She switched to English at Matt’s approach. “Do you want to tell him or should I?”

  Jean-Louis raised his arms up in surrender and let them fall to his sides, creating puffs of dust.

  “Jean-Louis will take you to Ouaga,” Sally said without waiting for her uncle to respond. “Jacques and I will go back to Bamako with your injured friend. The doctor is very worried about his leg if he doesn’t get to hospital.”

  “Okay, but…then we’ll all go. I can fly from Bamako.”

  “No. You are half way.”

  “I don’t need special treatment.”

  “Jean-Louis is taking you because he owes you. He owes me. I have suffered for the last time because of him, for his work with Le Croc. And I will make sure that he never is allowed back to the farm until he takes you to your son.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He interrupted your trip. And how many other men have had their trips cut short because of him, I don’t even know. I don’t want to know. But this is the last time, and he makes good to you, or he doesn’t come home. I will see to that.”

  Sally spoke with the moral authority of the victim. Jean-Louis didn’t appear to have standing in this conversation and he looked resigned to his penance.

  “I think I have earned the right to make this demand. Never again, Jean-Louis.” She turned to her uncle. “And you agree because you know I am right. You do this for me.” Jean-Louis let her continue.

  “We will take Robert’s car, as soon as Amadou can repair it.” She threw another angry glance at her uncle. “And you go with this one.” She referred to Jean-Louis. “He will take you to the hotel, to the embassy, wherever it is required, until you find your son. He has promised me this.”

  Jean-Louis didn’t object.

  Chapter 31

  In the morning, Matt, Jean-Louis, and Jacques rose at first light as Munir came around with small cups of sweet tea. Outside, the roads showed life. Truck engines idled in preparation for departure. The smell of fires mixed with the odor of diesel. Motorbikes bumped and buzzed past people crossing the road to begin their daily commerce.

  A dark stain in the hard pack marked where the Renault bled out its fluids prior to being moved to one of Amadou’s buildings for repair.

  Matt washed at the water pump in the rear courtyard; he cleaned his teeth with his fingers and used the tea to rinse. He shook out his pants and vest, stiff with dried mud, shed the short tunic, and got dressed. When he finished, Sally appeared from one of the houses in the rear, carrying a plastic container of sliced fruit. She walked him out to the Mercedes and placed the container in the front seat.

  “Good luck, Monsieur Reiser,” she said. “Jean-Louis will see you to your son.”

  “He doesn’t need to do this,” Matt said.

  “That is not in question any more. It is either life with Le Croc or with his family. He cannot have both.”

  Jean-Louis, his rinsed kaftan dried to a dreary shade of blue, approached with Amadou and Jacques.

  “I will tell you now what Jean-Louis will never tell you. His father was French,” Sally said. “He never knew him. All my uncle’s anger at the French – . He justifies his work with Le Croc as taking back what is his, from the French, from his father. I have always understood that. But it is not a good reason. He has a responsibility to his family which is greater than his hatred of the French. I told him yesterday. Look at me.”

  She turned her battered face.

  “Do I have to suffer because of these people in your life? You promised me in Abidjan, never again. But it happened again. How many more times, Ti-Jean? To how many more people? Because of this choice you make.”

  Jean-Louis watched Sally’s verdict, as did Amadou and Jacques, though it wasn’t clear how much they understood. The former concièrge didn’t show any signs of remorse, nor did he interrupt his niece.

  —Jean-Louis will not fail you, she said in French for all to hear, then repeated in English.

  Drawing her own line in the sand, making her statement from which there would be no turning back, she acted as her own interpreter, stating everything first in French then in English.

  —I am going back to university.

  —Nothing will stop me.

  —I am going to study medicine. Maybe someday in Paris. Maybe America.

  —I have never been more determined.

  She ended this farewell by taking Matt’s hands. “You will find your son. I am certain of it.”

/>   To her uncle she remained aloof as he got behind the wheel. He still had to prove himself.

  During the next several hours, Jean-Louis and Matt drove without speaking. They passed through a sparse rolling country of scraggly trees, the rare overbearing baobab, and earthen termite towers thrust upward by the industry of millions. Isolated conical mud homes, storage huts on block foundations, popped into view next to nothing in particular. Human activity clustered near villages and at markets assembled next to the road where local produce was traded, where cattle and goats grazed untended, chickens scrambled from under the tires of passing bicyclists, and donkeys tethered to rubber-wheeled carts endured the vicious whips of their masters.

  “Here’s another one,” Jean-Louis broke the silence when they came upon the isolated border outpost to Upper Volta, tucked into a narrow passage between two small hills. “A station that probably was not here last year and probably will not be here next year. Hold your cover out so he can see it.”

  A cheerless border guard in open-necked shirt and one hand on his holstered sidearm emerged from a square gray hut. He cast a suspicious eye on the Mercedes and its two passengers. Jean-Louis handed over his Ivorian pass, a CFA note prominently protruding. The guard leaned down to look at Matt and saw a man with a dark beard in a beaten-up khaki vest, tapping a blue American passport pouch on his knee. The guard took Jean-Louis’s passport inside the hut.

  “It is just a dream, you know,” Jean-Louis said matter-of-factly, his attention on the retreating guard.

  “What is? The border?” Matt said.

  “Studying in Paris,” he said.

  “Sally?” Matt was irked by this dismissive arrogance. “Why? You said yourself she’s the smartest one in your family. Smarter than you, if I remember right.”

  “True enough. And she can study in Abidjan. She is already at university. She can study as long as she wants. This urge for France, it’s only a reaction to the rape.”