by Andrew Brown
‘What grand silliness will our new politicians come up with next?’ Alek sighed.
Gabriel directed Kamal using the information from the teller. They drove near the bank of the river until they came to a walled entrance to a white building, a pretty display of roses marking the short driveway. A small procession was having photographs taken with the roses as a backdrop. A woman in a dark dress, with a dramatic ostrich-plumed hat, was the centre of attention, flanked by men in green-and-white robes. The men carried carved sticks and maintained serious expressions while the photographs were being taken. Gabriel and Alek waited until the session was over, to avoid making an unwanted appearance in the documenting of what appeared to be a wedding celebration.
The Wau Luxury Lodge turned out to be expensive – they preferred American dollars or euros – and the European owner looked Kamal up and down a few times before writing his name in the reception book. But the establishment offered a welcome level of comfort, including separate rooms, soft beds and clean linen. There was even a swimming pool overlooking the Jur, though the water looked as if it had been pumped straight from the river. Poinsettia bushes and pink geraniums gave the small bar area an incongruously jolly appearance – given the battle-scarred surrounds – but Gabriel was happy to escape into pretence for a while. Reality in Africa was proving to be a grinding affair.
The air was hot, but not as muggy as it had been in Juba and Rumbek. The heat felt cleaner and somehow more bearable. His bedroom was cool and, by South Sudan standards, very spacious. An overhead fan moved the air around and the room had its own small bathroom. Gabriel stripped down to a pair of shorts and inspected his swollen feet and delaminating toes. The skin was coming off in thick patches and the fresh layer of flesh was an unhealthy purple-red colour. He would have to find some ointment in the town.
He took a towel off the rail and walked across the entertainment area to the pool. Kamal was already sitting in the shade of a canvas umbrella, clothed and unwashed, and seemingly as unimpressed with the world as ever. He didn’t swim, he informed Gabriel through a series of angry gesticulations.
The pool was tepid and silty, and smelt strongly of chlorine, but the water on Gabriel’s body was still invigorating. He occasionally swam at the indoor pool at the university; this was nothing like it. The overhead heat from the sun, the proximity of the slow-moving mass of the river, the smells of distant cattle, all made it sharply exotic. He wondered how he would ever be able to recapture this feeling for anyone back home – the sense of dislocation, yet the excitement redefining his perceptions. And who would he try to describe it to? This thought suddenly troubled him as he splashed the water across his shoulders. Who was there, waiting with trembling anticipation for his return, excited to hear his stories, to share his experiences? Was Brian Hargreaves all he was left with? He had not thought of Jane for days, he realised. His wife – and his life in Bristol – seemed impossibly remote.
Alek emerged from her room wearing a black brassiere and panties, her towel draped over one shoulder and arm. To Gabriel she looked painfully thin, as if her limbs might snap under the effort of walking. He tried to shake the dream image of her in the flowering field from his mind. For the first time, she seemed a little shy, her eyes averted. She let the towel slip to the ground and pin-dropped without hesitation into the pool; she looked like a gnarled stick dropping into the water. In the moment before she hit the surface, she glanced at Gabriel and saw his eyes on her. There was something out of place on her upper arm, where she had draped the towel. He saw a flash of jagged skin, an ambiguity in the shape of her arm or the muscle. Then she was gone.
She surfaced precisely where she’d entered, letting the water drip from her face and not wiping her eyes. They remained at opposite ends of the little pool, embarrassed by the possibility of inadvertent contact. She kept her body beneath the waterline, only her head above, blowing circles out across the surface.
‘I like it here. Thank you.’
It was the first time she’d thanked him for anything and he had to concede that it was also the first time he had thought to consider her needs. He nodded, a simple response to keep the moment open between them, but she sank beneath the water again, rubbing her hair to dislodge some of the dust from the journey. Gabriel was tempted to lower his face into the water to watch her, like she was some rare fish. But instead he took the opportunity to get out of the pool. He was acutely conscious of the glaring whiteness of his skin, the podginess of middle age that had collected about his waist now pressing in a small roll over the top of his shorts. He wrapped a towel around himself in a swift motion.
A young barman stood behind the counter, immobile, as if guarding the glass-fronted bar fridge with its small selection of beers. Gabriel ordered a Heineken for himself. He’d learnt his lesson in Bristol and did not offer one to Kamal. He turned around with the bottle opened and was disappointed to see that the pool was already empty. A line of wet footprints marked Alek’s return to her room.
He turned back to the barman. ‘How are you?’
‘I am good. You are coming from Juba?’ The man’s face was friendly, and without scarification, but youth seemed somehow torn from his eyes. ‘It is better here than in Juba. Here there is no Ali Baba.’
‘Ali Baba?’
‘Ali Baba. Thieves. There are no thieves here in Wau.’
Gabriel laughed at the reference, but the young man’s expression remained serious. ‘So you like it here in Wau?’ Gabriel asked. ‘You were born here?’
The man shook his head. ‘I was brought here by the army. I was taken by the soldiers when I was eight. From my school, into the bush to fight. For seven years. Then when we were finished, they left me here. It is not so bad.’
The information was imparted without emotion. A simple tale of childhood, spoken and then discarded. Gabriel was too stunned to respond. The man returned to cleaning some glasses, taking his guest’s silence to mean that the conversation was over.
Alek reappeared, dressed in clean clothes, towelling her short hair dry. Gabriel was uncertain whether to offer her something to drink or not. She glanced at the Heineken and then noticed the hesitation in his face.
‘We’re allowed to drink in South Sudan now, do you know?’ she informed him. ‘We are no longer enslaved to the North. Or to your male assumptions. I will also have a Heineken. Thank you.’
Gabriel ordered another beer from the barman, suitably scolded but also relieved by her directness. She took the bottle from him and took a long slug, finishing nearly half the beer in one swallow. They sat looking out over the river. In the middle, three dark shapes bobbed in the water, the small waves kicked up by the wind splashing over them. After a while, one of them subsided and Gabriel realised that, for the first time in his life, he was watching a live hippopotamus. He was about to comment on this, when Alek started a story, without any prelude, as if they had been halfway through the discussion anyway.
‘Once, one of my older brothers said I had eyes like a cat. I was about twelve. It was just before I went into the camps. My father was still living with us then, although we didn’t see much of him. He was a brigadier in the SPLM and was often away. I think he thought we would be safer if he wasn’t there. But I missed him every day. I hated the soldiers, all of them, because it was them who had taken him away. Strange that my father survived a time of such war, to be killed in a time of peace …’
‘Your father survived the war?’
‘Yes, but he’s dead now. A few months ago. He was killed. Murdered. And my niece.’
‘By whom? I mean how?’
Alex shrugged. ‘Some kind of bomb. Blown into bits so small we couldn’t identify them or give them a proper burial. Adama was just a little girl.’
‘I see,’ said Gabriel, although he in fact remained confused. ‘What for?’
‘You’d think the United Nations would be asking that question,’ Alek said bitterly. ‘I’ve been trying to get them to investigate for months. It�
�s a human rights abuse. But they tell me it’s an internal police matter.’
‘And that’s why they want to get rid of you?’
‘That’s why they want to get rid of me.’
‘I see.’ It was a hopelessly inadequate response, but Alek’s delivery had been so matter-of-fact that it provided no opening for consolation.
As if sensing his discomfort, Alek changed tack: ‘But that’s not the story. This is a story about my brother. My brother said my eyes were wide and round, like a cat’s, so that you could see the white all around them. It was very rude. I was furious. But I did nothing. He was expecting me to chase him. Or to hit him right then, but Mama was there and she said it wasn’t proper for a girl to be hitting her brother, or any boy, and that she didn’t bring up her daughters to be that way.’
She told an amusing tale of sibling rivalry – of a brother who underestimated the wiliness of his sister, of a young Alek, lying in wait, pleased with herself for outwitting him. ‘He thought as a girl, I wouldn’t retaliate,’ she laughed as her memory slipped back to a happier time.
It would have been a simple childhood recollection were it not for the constant references to war and its effects – their playground devastated by the results of adult conflict. Gabriel was transfixed by the story, understanding for the first time just how young she was in years. And older in other, important ways.
‘I waited for my time, for him to think it was over. Then, when the bombing stopped,’ Alek said casually, ‘we went back to the fields to try to put the plants back into the ground, to cut away the leaves that had been burnt, replace the dead ones with new seeds. One day, we were working in the field. My brother was planting the seeds in the holes my little sister had made. She walked in front of him with a stick my mother had cut to show her how deep to push it into the soil. My brother was following after, bent right over, the sweat dripping off the end of his nose.
‘He was bending away from me and I had to walk to the side, but he thought nothing of it. I said, “You look like a cow with your nose dripping into the ground.” Then I struck him, on the back of the head with the hoe. He screamed and cried and ran around the field holding his head. And my sister and I laughed and laughed and fell over in the muddy soil and pointed at him and laughed again. And then he knew: I will always get you back. You cannot insult me and escape.’
Gabriel looked up at her a little shocked. ‘But—’
‘It was the flat part of the hoe,’ she countered crossly. ‘It only bled a little.’
Chapter 14
MEDICAL ROOMS, CITY ROAD, LONDON
‘Anxiety attack, my arse!’
Bartholomew flinched at his own inadvertent reference to his nether regions.
‘George, it’s not a heart attack.’ His general practitioner maintained a steady, empathic gaze. ‘A myocardial infarction has very particular symptoms and leaves specific markers. Your blood results exclude it. This episode is simply a reaction to the stress that you’re carrying around. Your blood pressure is up again. You’re sweaty, anxious, unable to concentrate. These are all signs of stress. And it’s not going to do your bowels any good.’ Maurice laid a comforting hand on his patient’s shoulder at the mention of his ailing digestive system.
After Bartholomew’s ‘episode’ – as Maurice insisted on referring to it – on Horse Guards Avenue, he had been taken by ambulance to the emergency unit at the Royal London Hospital on Whitechapel Road. The alarmingly young Indian doctor who attended to him had dismissed his collapse as an anxiety attack, telling Bartholomew to rest and ‘take it easy’, whatever that might mean in the world of military defence and spies. Despite remaining confused, Bartholomew was soon discharged and left the hospital in a state of high anxiety, certain that his heart was about to give in. He had gone directly to Maurice, blustering his way into the doctor’s waiting room.
But after a routine examination, Maurice offered little comfort. ‘George, I’m afraid I can’t fault the young intern,’ he explained.
‘“Take it easy”! That’s his medical conclusion? Take it bloody easy! My career’s going to pot around me; my heart’s giving up the ghost. My body alternates between concrete and water in my bowels. For God’s sake, Maurice!’
Maurice ordered some tea and asked his receptionist to apologise to the waiting patients for the delay. Then he settled down behind his desk and surveyed the air marshal over the top of his steepled hands.
‘George, I don’t want you to misunderstand me. You’re suffering from extreme stress and anxiety. That can be as dangerous as a heart attack. It’s not something we can ignore. But it needs your intervention more than it does mine. I can prescribe anti-anxiety medication. It’ll help you in the short term, but the longer-term management … well, it needs you to identify your stress and find ways to reduce or control it.’
Bartholomew found Maurice’s measured, fatherly tone soothing. Although his doctor was only a few years his elder, he had always taken comfort in his counsel. But now he felt a niggle of doubt. Something had been missed. His condition was dire, he felt.
‘I don’t know, Maurice. It’s not so bloody easy. Not in my work.’
Then Maurice said the unthinkable: ‘I really do think that a session of counselling would be beneficial, George. It’ll assist you in locating your stress. And sharing it with someone else—’
‘Counselling! Maurice, you can’t be serious. My whole life I’ve been trained not to tell anyone anything. I’m surrounded by spooks and soldiers. I have secrets that could bring this government to its knees. I worry about blurting something out in my sleep. And you want me to chat to some shrink about my stress? It’s not going to work, Maurice. There’s no chance.’
Maurice grimaced but did not challenge his patient.
‘And, besides, if the MoD got to hear about me seeing a private psych, well, I think they’d have my job for sure. I can’t give them any sticks to beat me with, Maurice. Not now.’
‘Well, George, bottling it all up isn’t going to help either. What you experienced this morning is just a taste. You’re sowing the seeds for a grim harvest, my friend. Is there no way you can take a leave of absence or something?’
What would he do, Bartholomew wondered. Holidays were something he dreaded, the empty time, the dull lack of productivity. He couldn’t even sit through a feature film without feeling impatient. A lengthy leave of absence was a horrifying prospect. And while he was away, Hussein would take his contract elsewhere and Richards would take over the Reaper Project; he would have no control. It was unthinkable.
‘No, Maurice. Things are too … sensitive at the moment. For me and … more broadly.’
‘I don’t know what you military men do with your time. Even in times of peace, you seem extraordinarily busy. God knows what you’re getting up to.’ Maurice smiled, but Bartholomew felt the censure.
‘Maurice, there are no times of peace. Not any more.’
His doctor left it at that. He prescribed a low-level sedative and insisted on a week’s rest from work. Bartholomew tried to explain that a week at home with Lilly fussing around him, out of contact with the growing disaster that was his imploding career, was not the kind of ‘rest’ that any man would desire. But Maurice was unpersuaded, laughing as if Bartholomew was joking, and patting him affectionately on the back as he ushered him out of the room.
Towards his impending demise, his patient feared.
Chapter 15
UNITY STATE, SOUTH SUDAN
The evening at the Wau Luxury Lodge was spent sitting outside eating spicy chicken and drinking cold beer. Kamal had disappeared to his room, but Alek sat with Gabriel and told him stories from her childhood. She probed him about his own history, drawing him out of himself. They spoke about his research, about academic life, which seemed to intrigue her. She remained reticent in her own disclosures, speaking and drinking less than Gabriel, but the conversation was easy, charming even.
The next morning he awoke with a dull headache
but renewed energy. He set off to find a pharmacy and soon returned with some ointment for his toes, having shown a wizened Arab chemist his ailment. Armed with his antifungal cream and a shrinking hangover, he approached the Land Cruiser with fresh hope. He had decided, during the course of the evening, to forego his plans to return to Juba. Having come this far, it seemed counterproductive to turn back now. Success was a day or two away and he was starting to warm to his guide.
‘Very good, Mr Gabriel,’ was all Alek said when he announced his change of heart. She seemed neither pleased nor disappointed. Kamal, on the other hand, took the news badly, giving Gabriel an angry look when Alek translated for him.
It was a decision Gabriel soon regretted, however, for as soon as they stopped for tea at Gogrial, a town further up the banks of the Jur River, the next challenge presented itself.
The town appeared to be in a state of hiatus. There was little movement on the road and the cattle shifted slothfully in their pens. Men slouched in handmade low chairs, their beards grey, Muslim skullcaps prevalent. A huge sycamore fig tree with massive clutches of fruit towered over them. The only motion came from a woman sweeping the area around her tea room with a bundle of long grasses, a bright-purple shawl covering her head and neck.
The moment Kamal stopped the vehicle, he announced that he would drive them no further, thrusting the keys at Alek. A heated argument ensued between Alek and the driver, spittle collecting in the corners of his mouth. Perplexed, Gabriel stood alongside the tea woman, who had stopped sweeping and was standing upright to watch the exchange with interest.
One of the men in the chairs seemed to want to take Kamal’s side, albeit lazily, but Alek fiercely shouted him down. The man shook his head, unhappy at being chastened by a woman, but held his peace nonetheless. Alek was sweating and breathing hard by the time she approached Gabriel with a resolution. As he had feared, it was to be settled with a further significant advance payment. His cash reserves were starting to run low and by his estimate they were only little over halfway through their journey. But Kamal was adamant, it seemed, walking away from the Land Cruiser and sitting down with the men outside the tea room, declaring his allegiances. He would go no further unless paid.
