Chapter Fourteen
Laokolé
The stars had come loose from the sky and were floating in space, chaotic and unfettered, dappling the shadows with myriad pulsating lights. Or could it have been a swarm of fireflies making those glowing, flickering sparks in the nighttime fog? Silence. I couldn’t hear a thing. Then I picked up a sound. First a distant rustling, as when two angels cross paths and their wings brush against each other. Then the sound of the stars. Finally those indistinct noises changed little by little into sounds that my memory recognized. I was in the marketplace of my home district, the great marketplace of Huambo. Amid the hubbub, I heard the sales patter of the merchants, the cries of the street peddlers, the wailing of hot, thirsty infants tied to their mother’s backs in large pagnes, the disputes of the idlers. I could discern the odor of strong spices over the smell of rotting meat and fish that had been lying in the open too long, exposed to the sun’s rays and the hairy feet of flies. I heard these things distinctly, but could see nothing. A damp coolness on my forehead. Eyelids heavy. I attempted to open them. With great effort, I succeeded. Everything was hazy and shifting. I closed them, then opened them again. The universe continued to pitch and toss for a moment, then stabilized as the mirage-like shapes moving around me became solid and distinct. But nothing looked familiar. This wasn’t the marketplace; I wasn’t sitting with Mama at her stall. Where was I? I felt as if I were emerging from a long, deep sleep. How did I come to be lying on this camp bed, and who was the woman bending over me with a kindly smile?
This couldn’t possibly have been a marketplace, though it was filled with people and as noisy as a carnival. The crowd overflowed from the large room in which I’d awakened and spread across the enormous courtyard outside, under the sun. I couldn’t have said whether there were two hundred, five hundred, or a thousand people. They were in every sort of position—standing, lying down, squatting on their heels, sitting on their backsides on the ground. The personnel in charge, greatly overburdened, could be identified by their clothing. People in blue berets were trying to bring some order to the confusion; they were asking new arrivals to line up and be registered before allowing them to settle in. Men and women wearing armbands emblazoned with a red cross were transporting the wounded on stretchers, setting up intravenous equipment, or tending to people who, like me, were lying on cots. With a sudden shock, I remembered.
“Mama! Fofo!”
“There—she’s coming around,” said the mouth of the woman bending over me.
I tried to stand, to get up from the camp bed. Her hands firmly restrained me. While she was holding me back, another woman arrived.
“Where am I? Where’s my mother?”
“Easy, now,” said the woman. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re under our protection.”
In her face I saw calmness, serenity, and what I can only describe as goodness—all of which immediately reassured me.
“My name is Tanisha,” she continued. “What’s yours?”
“Laokolé, but everyone just calls me Lao. Where is my mother?”
“Your mother’s here?”
She turned her head and looked around as if trying to find Mama. Her braids followed the movement of her head with a slight delay. Two little iridescent points on her pierced earlobes drew one’s eye to the only jewelry she wore. Her gaze again came to rest on me.
“You think she’s here? Did you arrive together?”
“We all fled together,” I said. “She could no longer walk—I was wheeling her in a wheelbarrow. At the last moment, someone came along to help me. Her leg is infected. It has to be treated, or she’ll die of gangrene.”
“If she’s here, we’ll find her. In any case—”
“Tanisha! Tanisha!” someone called in an urgent voice. “They’ve broken into the compound! They’re threatening the refugees!”
“What!” she exclaimed. “But they have no right! They must be stopped!”
She sprang up, threw me a glance as if to apologize for leaving, and said hurriedly to the woman who was restraining me:
“Take care of her, Birgit—I’ll be back!”
And out she went, raising a great whirlwind that made pagnes, bedclothes, and all the curtains in the room flutter in her wake.
Birgit asked one of her colleagues to register me. I gave my name, age, and address, and told them I’d fled with my little brother, Fofo—who had disappeared and was perhaps in this very place, lost in the crowd—and also with my mother, who was certainly here somewhere.
“There’s nothing seriously wrong with you. You fainted when you arrived. Doubtless from exhaustion. Here, drink something. And then you’ll be able to free up the cot.”
Scarcely had she handed me a plastic cup when we heard shouts and a commotion outside. Birgit went immediately to find out what was going on. I followed, and through the window I saw a group of blue berets confronting a dozen militia fighters. Right away I recognized the group that had killed the boy on the road. Their leader was speaking. I think I heard them call him Mad Dog. He was no longer wearing a baseball cap turned backward, or dark glasses, but he still had the ammunition belts crisscrossed over his chest and the fetishes hanging around his neck. Now he was armed with two guns, one of which hung from his shoulder and rested on his right hip. I also recognized the fellow with the big red wig. The heartless girl who had kicked away the boy kneeling before her and begging for his life wasn’t with them.
I couldn’t hear much from where I was watching, but the discussion was obviously heated. At one point in the face-off, Mad Dog put on his dark glasses and aimed his gun at one of the blue berets. A moment later, he changed his mind and turned the muzzle toward Tanisha. She promptly leaped at Mad Dog and his gun like a raging panther, but one of the blue berets held her back. The dispute went on awhile, and then the militia fighters decided to leave. The crowd of refugees broke into spontaneous applause and began yelling insults at Mad Dog and his men, as a group of armed blue berets escorted them to the gate.
As soon as they’d left, Birgit and the other staff members hurried to join Tanisha and her companions. I watched them gesturing but couldn’t understand what they said, so I left the window and returned to the camp bed to wait—worried, impatient, hoping their discussion wouldn’t last too long, since the two women had to come back quickly if we were to begin looking for Mama before nightfall. The day was already waning. Perhaps these foreigners didn’t know that here in the tropics there was almost no such thing as dusk—that we went from daylight to complete darkness, without transition, in a matter of minutes. My one consolation was knowing that the compound had electricity.
While waiting for them to come back, I took stock of my possessions. My bundle was there, and so was the leather bag I wore bandolier-style. Slipping my hand discreetly under my clothes, I verified that the little purse I’d fastened around my waist was still in place. Then I replayed all of the day’s events in my head. Early that morning, along with thousands of other residents from our district, we’d fled the bombardments and the subsequent looting and killing by the soldiers and militias of the various factions battling for power. In the confusion of our flight, I’d lost my little brother, Fofo. With my mother, helpless in a wheelbarrow, I’d eventually found myself outside the fortified walls of the Western embassies, which had refused us their protection. A man had tried to climb over the wall of one of the compounds, but the embassy guards who were fending us off and the militias who were hunting us down had both begun shooting, at the man and at us. Panic, flight. Out of nowhere, a man had appeared and had helped me to get Mama and the wheelbarrow out of the line of fire. With luck on our side, we’d barely made it to this compound, which belonged to the UN and its High Commission for Refugees. I’d fainted on arrival, and when I’d regained consciousness the man and the wheelbarrow had disappeared.
At Birgit’s request I repeated all of this when she returned, though I’d told the whole story to the agent who had registered me
. When I’d finished the account I asked to see Tanisha, since her presence had reassured me and given me confidence, despite the fact that we’d spoken only briefly. Birgit said that Tanisha was the director of the center—she had to coordinate and supervise everything, and thus was extremely busy. Moreover, there was an immediate threat to the safety of the refugees, who were being hunted by rogue militias. At the moment, Tanisha was working with other UN and HCR representatives to contact the local authorities, or what remained of them. Birgit then told me that she herself was in charge of my case and that I could rely on her. She’d been in Africa for a long time, working in civil war situations, and had a lot of experience with problems like this. When she said she was Swedish, it took me a moment before I believed her. I thought all Swedish women were blond (I’d never met one before), but Birgit’s hair was light brown. I then realized I’d been an idiot to use such absurd logic. An entire country can’t be blond, just as an entire country can’t be right-handed. Anyway, I hesitated only a few seconds—the warmth of her voice and her words quickly reassured me. When she asked me to come with her to the reception desk, I promptly followed her, my leather bandolier bag slung across my front.
The register contained no mention of a crippled woman in a wheelbarrow or a twelve-year-old boy named Fofo. Birgit told me not to get discouraged. “If she indeed came in with you, there’s no way she could disappear without leaving some trace.” She headed toward the emergency area and I went with her.
Just as we were entering the large tent that served as the emergency ward, two stretcher bearers were coming out, carrying a body covered with a sheet. Already people were dying, I thought.
“How long have you been here?” Birgit asked them.
“Since the crowd of refugees came in this afternoon,” answered one of them.
“Do you by any chance remember carrying or helping a crippled woman? She arrived in a wheelbarrow.”
“I don’t think so . . .” said one of the stretcher bearers, searching his memory.
“Crippled, did you say?” volunteered the other. “Both legs? Yeah . . . I think she died. We carried out the body of a crippled woman around midafternoon.”
“No!” I cried. Birgit put her arm around my shoulders. I began to sob. She tried to calm me.
“There’s no proof it was your mother. Only the list of the deceased can confirm that.”
We went into the tent. If the compound had been a regular hospital, this would have been the intensive care unit. There were so many sick and wounded that many of them were lying on the bare ground. IV bottles and tubing were hanging here and there on improvised supports. The air was thick with the smell of disinfectant, along with the moans of adults and the wailing of children.
The first thing I recognized was the pagne. Then the kerchief on her head. “There she is!” I cried, and rushed to the far end of the tent. She was lying on the ground but at least had a cloth under her. No sign of the wheelbarrow. I immediately sat down beside her. To my great surprise, she was asleep, but I couldn’t tell if it was a peaceful sleep. The marks of suffering were apparent on her face—lines, creases, dried tears. It was a face only barely illuminated by the few electric lights that had been hastily installed under the tent. Bare bulbs assigned the Herculean task of driving back the thick darkness that relentlessly encroached on the twenty meters of space between them. Mama was perspiring heavily in the heat. I gently raised her pagne to look at what remained of her legs; the wounded stump was obviously still infected, but I couldn’t tell if the inflammation had worsened or not. As my gaze returned to her face, I saw a mosquito, swollen with blood but evidently not yet sated, land on her forehead and plunge its stinger into her skin. Furious, I crushed it with a light slap and it burst, spattering my palm with blood. Disgusting. Mama must have felt the slap, for she stirred slightly. But she didn’t wake up.
Birgit arrived, accompanied by a doctor—a Frenchman, I think. He explained to Birgit that the woman had arrived in a wheelbarrow, aided by someone who hadn’t left his name. She had been in a great deal of pain, so the doctor had given her a strong sedative to ease her suffering and help her sleep. She’d also been given an anti-inflammatory. For the moment, that was all he could do. The two of them went away and left me alone with her.
I took off Fofo’s cap, which I’d been wearing all this time, and used it as a fan. And while I was fanning Mama, I thought of Fofo. How could a boy of twelve, deprived of everything, survive alone amid such chaos? I couldn’t sit still—I had to get up, had to look for him. I immediately justified my decision by telling myself that Mama was now safely in the care of a large, well-known, highly respected international organization and one of its specialized branches, the HCR. So I could leave her to go in search of my little brother.
Outside the tent there was no electricity, but the moon’s glow revealed that the courtyard was teeming with people, their features indistinguishable in the faint light. I could see isolated forms moving about, or groups silhouetted by the few scraps of light coming from candles and storm lanterns. In contrast, off toward the right were two brightly lit buildings with real walls and real roofs. They were the refuge of the white foreign nationals and their families, those who had been unable to reach the protection of their embassies or consulates in the general panic. I felt discouraged. I couldn’t go around calling, “Fofo! Fofo!” through the compound, where so many sick and injured were sleeping and so many people were working. They’d think I was crazy. There was only one thing to do: wait for dawn. In the meantime, I had to go back and find the bundle I’d left by the camp bed when I’d gotten up to follow Birgit. Then I would return to Mama’s side and watch over her. Early the next morning, at first light, I’d begin the search for Fofo.
Chapter Fifteen
Johnny, Known as Mad Dog
The area around the embassies was in chaos when we arrived. Clusters of people who had come to the various diplomatic missions were pounding ceaselessly on the gates, no doubt with the hope of seeing them magically open, despite the shots being fired from inside to dissuade them. Giap had been mistaken: the Western embassies had done our work for us—they’d shut their doors to our enemies, the people who were seeking refuge. So here we were, coming to the aid of our unexpected allies and likewise firing into the air to disperse the crowds and drive them back toward the Huambo district, which was now completely under our control. But our gunshots had the reverse effect. With a mass change of direction, the crowd turned to the east, fleeing toward the Kandahar district—a neighborhood that was largely Mayi-Dogo, a Chechen fiefdom.
Kandahar was the area Giap had assigned to Idi Amin. Under no circumstances could the people be allowed to flee there. This would be a strategic mistake that that sicko Giap would never let me get away with, even if I still accomplished my primary mission of preventing the refugees from taking shelter in the foreign embassies. With half of my unit crammed into the 4×4 like sardines, I raced off to set up a roadblock on the main street leading into the Kandahar district. I hadn’t gone three hundred meters when disaster struck: the gate to the enormous compound of the High Commission for Refugees swung open and, like a vacuum cleaner, sucked in children, women, and men—some of whom, despite the chaos, were still carrying bags in their arms, bundles on their heads, sacks on their backs. I even saw a few who were pushing wheelbarrows. They were shoving, bumping, trampling one another. Too bad for those who fell. I’d never seen anything like it before in my life, not even in a soccer stadium, not even the time the Brazilian team came to play in our city and there was a stampede that killed twenty-two people. When I die and am whisked off to heaven with the rest of the righteous, I hope the Good Lord will have better crowd control outside the Pearly Gates.
We jumped out of the vehicle. Clearing a path for ourselves with blows from our gun butts, we made our way to the gate and tried to close it. Impossible. Whenever we managed to move one of the two wings a few centimeters, it was immediately pushed back again, forcing us to g
ive way like a dam yielding to the pressure of the water behind it. If we didn’t do something to get the situation in hand, the wild mob would overrun us—would trample us to a pulp, including our family jewels. There was only one thing we could do to save our lives: start shooting. At first we merely fired into the air, but that didn’t stop those people desperate for asylum. So then I fired squarely into the crowd, and immediately the rest of the unit followed my lead.
The people didn’t understand right away what was happening. Driven by their urgent need, they continued to rush forward, trampling those who had been cut down by our bullets and were already lying on the ground. When the people up front finally realized what was going on, they tried to back up, but the ones behind them kept pressing ahead. I began to be seriously frightened—even though I had a machine gun in my hand! I’d always thought that power lay at the muzzle of a gun, that with a weapon you could do anything, you were master of the world. But here I could fire away, we could all fire away, and the people would still keep coming. I started to panic. Where was Idi Amin’s unit, which Giap said he had posted here? In a few minutes, in a few seconds, we’d be underfoot, squashed like bugs. It was time to clear out . . .
All of a sudden, for no apparent reason, the crowd changed direction like a herd of sheep and headed off in the direction of Kandahar. Man! About time. With trembling hands, I wiped the sweat dripping from my brow and armpits. We’d won. We were the stronger. After all, we had the machine guns. But that wasn’t the end of it. We still needed to chase away the people who’d managed to get into the compound. I immediately told the commandos to make a sweep through the courtyard and the buildings, and roust out the refugees.
Johnny Mad Dog Page 11
