The Mission Song

by John le Carré

  “Well, thank you for that information, Haj,” Philip replies, bland as cream. “I can't imagine that our experts are unaware of what you've told us, but I'll make sure it's passed on. Coltan isn't quite the wonder mineral it used to be, alas, but I'm sure you know that.”

  • • •

  “Roamer, Skipper?”

  My hand is up, requesting clarification. Maxie tetchily supplies it. Well, how was I to know that roamer radios move so fast from one frequency to another that there's not a listening device in all Africa, let alone Bukavu, that can touch them?

  “Mercs, Skipper?”

  “Mercenaries, man! — Bloody hell. What did you think they were? Cars? Thought you could do military.”

  “And PMC, Skipper?” — not two minutes later. “Private Military Company — Jesus, Sinclair, where the hell have you been all your life?”

  I apologise, a thing a top interpreter should never do.

  “Cordons. Got that, old boy? French word, you should be all right with that. Soon as a base is secured, we throw a cordon round it. Fifteen-mile radius, nobody goes in or out without our say-so. The whole outfit air-supplied by helicopter. Our helicopter, our pilot, but your base.”

  Anton pops a toy helicopter on each base. Moving to avoid Haj's stare, I discover that Philip has taken centre stage.

  “And these helicopters, gentlemen” — never shy of the showman's touch, Philip waits for total silence, gets it, starts again — “these helicopters, which are so vital to our operation, will for ease of identification be painted white. And for ease of passage, we propose to take the precaution of painting UN markings on them,” he adds in a throwaway tone which I do my level best to emulate while keeping my eyes fixed on my Perrier bottle, and my ears deaf to Hannah's ever louder cries of outrage.

  Maxie is back. He favours the sixty-mill mortar, essential to Spider's beloved mayhem. He has a kind word or two for the rocket-propelled grenade which goes nine hundred yards then self-destructs, making mincemeat of a platoon, but it's the sixty-mill that has his heart. Rendering him, it's as if I'm in a long tunnel, hearing my own voice coming at me out of the darkness:

  First we ferry in fuel, then ammunition.

  Each man to get his own Czech-made Kalashnikov. Find me a better semi anywhere in the world.

  Each base to receive three Russian 7.62 machine-guns, ten thousand rounds of ammunition, one white helicopter for transporting freight and troops.

  Each white helicopter to carry one Gatling machine-gun in its nose cone, capable of firing four thousand rounds per minute of 12.7 mm ammunition.

  Ample time to be allowed for training. Never knew a unit yet that wasn't the better for training.

  Tell 'em that, old boy. I do. No bell has rung but the post-office clock ticks on and we soldiers are sticklers for time. The double doors to the library swing open. Our forgotten women, wearing gingham aprons, are posed before a royal buffet. In my out-of-body state I observe lobsters on packed ice, a salmon garnished with cucumber, a cold collation of meats, a cheeseboard that includes a soft Brie that has escaped the waste-disposal unit, white wine in frosted silver buckets, a pyramid of fresh fruits and, as the jewel in the crown, a two-tiered cake surmounted by the flags of Kivu and the Democratic Congolese Republic. Via the French windows, with perfect timing, enter in solemn order of precedence the Mwangaza, his pious secretary the Dolphin, and Anton bringing up the rear.

  “Lunch break, gendemen!” jocular Philip calls as we dutifully rise. “Please do all the damage you can!”

  White helicopters bearing UN markings, I repeat to myself. Firing Gatling machine-guns from their nose cones at four thousand rounds a minute in the interests of peace, inclusiveness and prosperity for all Kivu.

  • • •

  I will say at once that in all my years of interpreting I had never before been placed in a situation where my clients did not vigorously insist upon my personal attendance at whatever type of hospitality they were extending, be it your full-scale, black-tie banquet complete with toastmaster, or your end-of-day complimentary cocktail plus cold and hot finger-food. But the skipper's orders had been unequivocal. Besides which, the undefined forebodings that were by now stirring in me had banished all thought of sustenance, notwithstanding the sumptuous spread of open sandwiches which for all Maxie's talk of a ship's biscuit greeted me on my return to the boiler room.

  “We're stood down, boy,” Spider informs me, stuffing a chunk of cheese and gherkin into his mouth while with his other hand bestowing an airy wave on his tape recorders. “Take a skim around the tables now and then, and put your feet up till further orders.”

  “Who said?”

  “Philip.”

  Spider's complacency fails to put my mind at ease, far from it. With the same knowing smirk with which he had earlier informed me that we were in for a busy lunchtime, he was now telling me we were becalmed. I put on my headset only to discover I am tuned to a vacuum. This time Sam has not forgotten to switch off her microphone. Spider is studying a tattered military magazine and chewing vigorously, but he may be watching me. I select LIBRARY on my console and hear a predictable crashing of plates and cutlery as the buffet gets under way. I hear Gladys — or it is Janet? — asking, “May I cut you a slice, sir?” in surprisingly good Swahili. I have a mental photograph of the layout in the library-turned-dining room. It's assisted self-service and separate tables, two of two and one of four, and each table, according to my console, separately bugged. The French windows are open to those wishing to take the air. Garden tables, also bugged, await their pleasure. Philip is playing maitre d'hotel.

  “Monsieur Dieudonne, why not here? — Mzee Franco, where would that leg of yours be most comfortable?”

  What am I listening for? Why am I so alert? I select a table and hear Franco in conversation with the Mwangaza and the Dolphin. He's describing a dream he's had. As secret child and captive audience of the Mission servants, I've listened to a lot of African dreams in my time, so Franco's comes as no surprise, neither does the far-out interpretation he puts on it.

  “I entered my neighbour's courtyard and saw a body lying face downwards in the mud. I turned it over and saw my own eyes looking up at me. I therefore knew it was time for me to respect my general's orders and obtain good terms for the Mai Mai in this great battle.”

  The Dolphin simpers his approval. The Mwangaza is noncommittal. But I have ears only for what I'm not hearing: the slap of green croc on slate floor, a whoop of derisive laughter. I switch to the first small table and get Philip and Dieudonne discussing pastoral practices in a mix of Swahili and French. I switch to the second and get nothing. Where's Maxie? Where's Tabizi? But I am not their keeper. I am Haj's, and where is he?

  I switch back to the big table in the unlikely hope that he has been keeping his thoughts to himself out of deference to the great man's friendship with his father. Instead, I get thumps and heavings, but no voices, not even the Mwangaza's. Bit by bit I sort out what's happening. Franco has extricated his fetish purse from the recesses of his huge brown suit and is confiding its contents to his new leader: the knuckle bone of a monkey, an ointment box once the property of his grandfather, a fragment of basalt from a vanished jungle city. The Mwangaza and the Dolphin are polite in their appreciation. If Tabizi is present, he doesn't bother to signify. And still no Haj, however hard I listen.

  I return to Philip and Dieudonne, and discover that Maxie has grafted himself onto their conversation and is applying his frightful French to the pastoral practices of the Banyamulenge. I do what I should have done five minutes ago. I switch to the Mwangaza's DRAWING ROOM and hear Haj scream.

  All right, the attribution was at first tentative. The scream contained none of the wide-ranging sounds I had thus far heard from Haj, and many I hadn't, such as terror, agony and abject supplication, dwindling by degrees to a whimper of recognisable words which, though faint, enabled me to confirm my identification. I can offer approximations of these words but no verbatim. For on
ce in my life, my pencil, though poised, failed to make contact with the notepad beneath it. But the words were in any case banalities, such as please or for God's sake or no more. They invoked Maria, though whether Haj was appealing to the Virgin or a mistress or his mother was never clear.

  The scream on first hearing also struck me as extremely loud, although I was later obliged to qualify this. It had the effect of a wire strung between the earpieces of my headset, passing through my brain, and turned to red hot. It was so loud that I couldn't believe Spider hadn't heard it too. Yet when I ventured a covert look at him, his demeanour hadn't altered one jot. He was seated in the same position, munching the same chunk of bread, cheese and gherkin, and reading or not reading the same military magazine, and exuding the same air of superior satisfaction that had previously got on my nerves.

  I switched quickly back to the library while I recovered my wits. Ensconced at his lunch-table, the Mwangaza was proposing to publish a selection of his thoughts on African democracy. At another, Philip, Maxie and Dieudonne were thrashing out matters of land irrigation. For a few deranged seconds I tried to convince myself that the scream was a fantasy, but I can't have been very persuasive, because before I knew it I was back in the Mwangaza's drawing room.

  And here I will permit myself the advantage of hindsight, since several more screams followed before I was able to identify the other dramatis personae. For instance: it struck me early on that, while there were indications of other feet at work — two pairs of highly active rubberised soles on hard floor, and one pair of light leather which I tentatively awarded to the catlike Tabizi — there was no slapping of crocs, thereby leading me to the conclusion that Haj was either suspended above the ground in some way, or shoeless, or both. But it took a succession of exchanges between Haj and his tormentors before I felt able to assume that he was bound and, from the waist down at least, naked.

  The screams I was hearing, though close to the microphone, were softer and more piglike than I had at first thought, being muffled by a towel or similar which was removed if Haj signalled that he had something worthwhile to say, and jammed back in place when he hadn't. It was also apparent that, in the view of his tormentors, he was making use of this signal too often: which was how I came to identify, first Benny — “You try that once more, and I'll burn your balls off” — and immediately after him Anton, promising Haj “a one-way journey up your arse with this.”

  So what was this?

  We hear so much about torture these days, argue about whether such practices as hooding, sound-deprivation and water-boarding amount to it, that not much remains to the imagination. This was electrically powered: so much was quickly evident. There is Anton's threat to turn up the power, and there is a moment when Benny coarsely rebukes Tabizi for tripping over the fucking flex. Was this a cattle prod, then? A pair of electrodes? If so, the question that follows is: how did they come by this? Had they brought this along with them as a standard piece of equipment just in case — much as another person might carry an umbrella to work on a cloudy day? Or had they improvised this on the spot from stuff lying around — a bit of cable here, a transformer there, a dimmer-switch, an old poker, and Bob's your uncle?

  And if they had, who would they most naturally turn to for technical assistance and know-how? — which was why, even in the midst of my turmoil, I found time to revisit Spider's smile. There was more than a suggestion of the creator's pride about it. Was that what he had been up to when he was called away from his post? Cobbling together a makeshift cattle prod from his toolbox for the lads? Doing them one of his famous lash-ups, guaranteed to win the heart and mind of the most stubborn prisoner? If so, the task had not spoiled his appetite, for he was chewing heartily.

  I will not attempt here to offer anything more than the plain path of Tabizi's questioning, and Haj's futile denials which with merciful swiftness deteriorated into confession. I will leave to the imagination the guttural threats and curses on the one side, and the screams, sobs and entreaties on the other. Tabizi was clearly no stranger to torture. His laconic menaces, histrionics and fits of wheedling testified to long practice. And Haj, after an opening display of defiance, was no stoic. I didn't see him lasting long at the whipping post.

  It is also important to note that Tabizi made no effort to protect his source: me. He took his information straight from the duel on the gazebo steps, and went through none of the usual hoops to disguise its origin. There were no phrases such as “a trusted informant reports” or “according to liaison material received” with which Mr Anderson's desk officers attempt to obfuscate the location of his bugs. Only an interrogator whose victims will never again see the light of day would be so careless. First, in his gravelly French, Tabizi asks Haj after the health of his father Luc.

  Bad. Real bad. Dying.

  Where?

  Hospital.

  Hospital where?

  Cape Town.

  Which one?

  Haj speaks guardedly, and with reason. He is lying. They have given him a taste of the cattle prod, but not the full treatment. Tabizi asks again which hospital in Cape Town. His shoes have a restless tread. I have a picture of him circling Haj while he snarls his questions at him, perhaps occasionally lending a hand of his own, but in the main leaving matters to his two assistants.

  Tabizi: Luc never went to any fucking hospital, did he? . . . did he? . . . did he? . . . Okay. So it's a lie . . . Whose lie? Luc's? . . . your own fucking lie? .. . so where's Luc now? . . . where is he? . . . where's Luc? .. . I said, where's Luc? .. . in Cape Town, right. Next time make it easier for yourself. Luc is in Cape Town but he's not in hospital. So what's he doing? Speak up! . . . Golf. . . I love it. Who's he playing golf with? The fat Dutch gentleman? . . . He's playing golf with his brother! . . . the fat Dutchman's brother or his own brother? ... his own brother . . . nice . . . and what's the name of this brother? . . . Etienne . . . your uncle Etienne . . . elder or younger? . . . younger ... So now what's the name of the Dutchman? ... I said the Dutchman ... I said the fat Dutchman ... I said the fat Dutchman we just talked about . . . the Dutchman your father isn't playing golf with today . . . the fat Dutchman you studied with in Paris who smokes cigars . . . remember him? . . . remember him? . . . the fat Dutchman your father met in Nairobi, thanks to your good offices, you little shit . . . you want some more of that? . . . you want the boys to go right up the scale so you know what it feels like? . . . Marius . . . His name is Marius . . . Mr Marius, Marius who? . . . Give him a rest a minute .. . let him speak . . . okay, don't give him a rest, give him the whole . . . van Tonge .. . his name is Marius van Tonge. And what does Marius van Tonge do for a profession? . . . venture capital . . . one of five partners . . . we're talking nicely now, so let's keep it that way, just don't shit me and we'll lower the heat a little bit . . . not too much or you'll forget why you're talking .. . So this Marius sent you to spy on us . . . you're spying for Marius . . . you're spying for the fat Dutch fucker, he's paying you a lot of money to tell him everything we talk about . . . yes? . . . yes? . . . yes? NO! It's no. Assume it's no . . . you're not spying for Marius, you're spying for Luc, how's that? You're Luc's spy and as soon as you get home you're going to tell it all to Daddy so he can go back to Marius and get himself a better deal. . . not true . . . not true . . . not true . . . still not true? . . . still not true? . . . don't go to sleep on me . . . nobody's going to let you sleep here . . . open your eyes . . . if you don't open your eyes in just fifteen seconds we're going to wake you up like you've never been woken up before . . . Better . . . that's much better .. . all right, you came here of your own free will . . . you're freelance . . . your dad agreed to play sick so that you could come here of your own free will. . . you don't want what? . . . War! . . . You don't want another war . . . you believe in reconciliation with Rwanda . . . you want a trade treaty with Rwanda . . . when? In the next millennium? (laughter) . . . you want a common market of all the nations of the Great Lakes . . . and Marius is the man to broke
r that . . . that's what you sincerely believe . . . well, congratulations, (in English) Give him some water . . . now tell us some more about these evil friends of yours in Kinshasa who've been telling you shitty stories about the Mwangaza. You don't have any evil friends . . . you don't have any friends in Kinshasa . . . Nobody in Kinshasa has talked to you . . . guys who could make you wake up dead . . . well, WAKE UP NOW, you little . . . (again in fractured English): Give it to him, Benny, all the way ... I hate this nigger ... I hate him ... I hate him . . .

  Until now Haj's responses have been scarcely audible, hence Tabizi's practice of repeating them at full volume, I assume for the benefit of the contingency microphones that I wasn't cleared for, and for anyone else who may be listening on a separate link — I'm thinking particularly of Philip. But with the mention of Kinshasa, the mood in the living room alters radically, and so does Haj. He perks up. As his pain and humiliation turn to anger, his voice acquires muscle, his diction clears, and the old, defiant Haj miraculously re-creates himself. No more whimpering confessions extracted under torture for him. Instead we get a furious, freewheeling indictment, a barrage of forensic, vituperative accusation.

  Haj: You want to know who they are, these wise guys in Kinshasa I spoke to? Your fucking friends! The Mwangaza's fucking friends! — the fatcats he won't have anything to do with till he's built Jerusalem in Kivu! You know what they call themselves, this band of altruistic public servants when they're swilling beer and screwing whores and deciding which kind of Mercedes to buy? — the Thirty Per Cent Club. What's thirty per cent? Thirty per cent is the People's Portion that they propose to award themselves in exchange for favours they are granting to the Middle Path. It's the piece of this crappy operation that persuades arseholes like my father that they can build schools and roads and hospitals while they line their fucking pockets. What do these fatcats have to do to earn themselves the People's Portion? What they like to do best: nothing. Look the other way. Tell their troops to stay in their barracks and stop raping people for a few days.