Stringer

by Anjan Sundaram

  The ville hardly noticed—the dollar prices at its expatriate restaurants barely budged. But our neighborhood was in turmoil. There was a rampage of purchases, and the extra cash accelerated the inflation. Nana, trying to keep up, constantly needed money. Common sense was lost: vendors sold goods by auction. Exchanges were set up between parts of the city to profit from arbitrage. By the time the frenzy cooled I had bought several crates of water and toilet paper. Nana had bought so much rice the storeroom resembled a small granary.

  Our neighbors from across the street visited, but I had to refuse them funds. Jose advised I keep my money somewhere else. “Not to scare unnecessarily, but I don’t want you to have a bad experience in my house.” Nana began to leave her phone when she left for the market. Jose no longer wore his Yamamoto watch.

  The city’s most credible bank was in the ville. It was called RAW. An Indian family ran it and the manager, a short man with thick, oily hair, welcomed me with special warmth. He asked where I came from, and about my family. On the wall, a gilded plaque boasted of an affiliation with Citigroup, next to a map of India and a garlanded picture of one of the owners’ ancestors. I felt reassured, for I had come with a problem: RAW required a ten-thousand-dollar minimum to open an account. The bank catered to diamond dealers—and reputedly to Avi Mezler, an Israeli notorious for dirty dealings. The manager patiently listened to my case and then picked up the phone. At the end of a quick deliberation with his chief he said for some reduced wire-transfer privileges he would be able to make an exception. I thanked him profusely.

  The next day I combined some errands with the trip to the bank, to make the initial deposit. It was a relaxed day, and after an interview with an NGO boss, I was near the Chanimétal shipyards, waiting for a taxi. Then, without warning, the road filled with honks. A 4x4 with blinking taillights roared past, followed by two others. Suddenly a convoy of black jeeps. It was the president. But tailing him—almost harassing his convoy—was a rattling car drawing a long opposition banner. People were being called to march against Kabila. Pedestrians cheered at the passing car. Demonstrators would soon block the traffic; I would have to hurry to the bank and hurry again to reach home. I waved my finger vigorously. A white hatchback stopped at the curb. The driver leaned out, “Boulevard?”

  The two passengers in the backseat squeezed me between them. The driver wore a felt bowler hat. The car was in good shape: the seats were clean, our feet rested on rubber mats and the dashboard dials seemed to work. From the rearview mirror hung a miniature penguin. The travelers smiled at me as if they wanted to make friends.

  One of them handed out a bag of licorice candy, and soon all of us were holding the thin red straws between our lips. I passed on the bag, careful not to touch the melted syrup on the plastic. They sucked, slurped and ground the licorice to pieces. The bag was emptied.

  “You like our country?” the driver asked, chewing.

  “Very much. I just came from the coast; it’s beautiful.”

  “Is it? I’ve never been outside Kinshasa.”

  “You’ve never seen the sea?”

  “Only on TV.”

  The driver smiled, looking at me in the rearview mirror. My gaze shifted to the road, then back to the mirror. The driver pulled the licorice from his mouth and held the soggy strand, licking his lips before speaking; there was a gap between his front teeth and though he wasn’t fat he had a double chin, which was unusual for a Congolese. “Have you had a chance to see our monuments?”

  We passed a wide gray building, some ten stories high, covered with laundry whose dripping had over the years made vertical lines on the walls. “Look at how the army lives in that hospital.” A decapitated tank covered in ferns sat in the courtyard. “It’s been this way for a long time,” he said mournfully. And at that moment the lined gray building looked as if it wept.

  The blue presidential compound appeared, with its giant iron gates and battalion of guards. The driver’s teeth were now red; he seemed in a daze, looking at the guards and talking in a flurry— then ranting, like the opposition: “Congo could be the greatest country in the world. If they shared just a little of our wealth. But our leaders only think about themselves. Egoists.”

  It was a familiar grievance in Kinshasa. I didn’t feel qualified to speak.

  Our car sped through the streets, through slums and beside rows of misshapen dwellings made of corrugated tin. Women stood with colored plastic buckets in long lines at water pumps. The tin reflected the light and the roofs appeared brilliant, blinding.

  “This city is a pile of rubbish,” the driver went on. “Look at the garbage on the road. They sweep and pile it up but then leave it for the wind and the rain. What is the use?”

  We had reached the Boulevard. It was midday and trucks were in town to deliver goods—their dense exhausts clouded the grim crowds huddled atop each vehicle, their legs reaching over the trucks’ dusty tarps and bouncing against the metal sides. Our taxi followed the slow traffic, repeatedly jerking to accelerate and brake. We came upon an orange edifice—the Ministry of Migration—and now the driver completely lost his head.

  “I used to work there, but they threw me out,” he said, pointing to his side. “It is the Ministry of Méchant [Malice]. They should make it a prison. No need to move anyone.”

  The other passengers laughed. I looked around. The worn condition of their shirts betrayed that they were of the poorer classes, from the bidonvilles, the suburban shantytowns. They probably headed into the city for some minor commerce: to pawn a trinket or as day laborers; the going rate was eighty cents for eight hours of work, but that would pay for a roll of bread and a Coca-Cola, and perhaps something for the children. An urge overtook me: I wanted to show I cared about them though I was a stranger—that despite my relative health and riches I sympathized with their condition.

  “That ministry stole two hundred dollars from me at the airport,” I said. “Even though I had a valid visa from New York, they threatened to lock me up until I paid a bribe.” I pointed accusingly at the orange building behind us. “That place is full of thieves!”

  The driver stopped nodding and he frowned in the mirror, the edges of his face now contorted. The passengers began to shake their legs. Feet rapped against the rubber mats; air whistled through a gap in the window. We passed a street policeman. The driver shook his head, slowly, like a metronome. He became pensive, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

  “Thieves,” he murmured, so softly that he seemed to whisper, and then his tone was frighteningly hysterical: “Thieves? You are who to be talking like this?”

  We suddenly accelerated. The driver firmly shifted gears. And when the car swerved off the Boulevard I realized I was in trouble. “I’ll get off here please.”

  “Calm down. I’m taking you, aren’t I?”

  I leaned forward with an effort—the passengers had wedged me tight. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll get off here.”

  “Tranquille.” The driver pushed me back with a firm hand. The backseat men pinned down my shoulders.

  The man to my left plunged his hand into his pants. Oh, f——.

  He fumbled with a black revolver whose handle was misshapen. Deftly he ejected the magazine. “See?” It was full, stacked with shiny bronze bullets. He reloaded the gun, cocked it with a click and pressed the barrel against my temple. His eyes were like two bulging onions. His arms were thick and venous.

  I screamed. He pressed his fingernails into my throat. I gasped. I screamed louder, without thinking. His nails cut into my skin; it made a piercing pain. “Shut up or I’ll shoot,” he hissed.

  “Don’t do this. I’m a friend of the Opposition Debout. Ask Anderson!”

  “Who?” The driver’s stained lips made thin red lines like arteries. My vision went blurry. I felt disconnected from the world. It felt as if there had never been a connection. I was completely betrayed. I closed my eyes. I squirmed as I felt their hands move up the insides of my legs and down the small of my back
, over the lining of my underwear and in every crack and crevice they could find. Their rough hands, sandy, coarse. They pushed me open, pulled me apart. Their fingers were powerful. I was immobile, helpless. I gave in, only wanting them to stop.

  They dumped me near the river, in a wealthy neighborhood. I fell on the ground and rolled to the side. The door banged shut. The hatchback, speeding away, didn’t have a license plate.

  It screeched around the corner. All around me the walls were high. Alerted by the noise, two guards came to a peephole in a gate. The people here would not help. They were people who lived in big houses with big cars and big money. You should have robbed them! The words screamed in my mind. Why me?

  And I’d lost the deposit money—thinking the cash would be unsafe in the house I had taken nearly all of it; and now it was gone.

  “Police! Where do I find the police?” I shouted, stretching my arms down the street in either direction. The guards shut their peephole. A finger rose above the gate. That way.

  In that moment I felt the need for pity, and my frustration came out in this terrible way. My body lurched forward instead of walking; enervated, I wanted to fall. At the Boulevard the beggars were waiting. I heard them first. Moneymoneymoney. Young, old, hunchbacked, stunted, hairy, bald, they ambushed, grabbed. I turned to run but they had made a ring and converged. Suddenly surging I pushed away their heads, shoulders, muscular chests; my hands felt the dirt on their bodies and I started to slap them, jolt them, hit them hard. They scattered: behind cars and buildings; in the shadows of doorways. I was alone, and it was like after a sudden storm. Cars honked and rushed past. The breeze flapped my shirt.

  As I traversed the long Boulevard the Congolese faces blurred into one another. At every corner I became apprehensive; all the figures seemed to resemble the robbers. And on the narrower roads I felt watched. I became conscious of the strange sight I made: the walking foreigner. I kept my distance, careful not to brush against the pedestrians. Physical separation was my small way of escape; but it was ineffective. In my alarmed state I stared at each person, scrutinizing the face; they returned my stares; and I felt angrier, but shorn, small.

  The roads had no sidewalks so I had to compete with the traffic for the uneven graveled street edges, ditched and crammed with equipment: generators, barrows, pumps, piping; the taxi-buses I used to travel in now nearly hit me, careening, honking drumbeats, preventing me from crossing streets. The wayside shops were grouped together by type: on one street were automobile spare-parts garages and on the other only furniture stores. Chairs and coatracks spilled onto the driving areas. I passed photography studios, paper boutiques, and rows and rows of dark houses. It took me two hours to reach the police station. I arrived tired and thirsty.

  I had imagined the station as a place of authority, like the ministries, or the presidential palace. But it was a simple oblong compound, guarded by a single sentry. Inside the gates was a long tree-lined courtyard. To each side cadres trained and played football. At the far building I was made to register at a desk and then ushered into a waiting area—a cramped room with a few chairs and a mass of silent people who stared. I felt guilty at once.

  I was made to wait like the others, without privilege. An hour or so later my name was called. A policeman led me to a room that was airy but bleak: the windows had no curtains, the hanging bulb was without shade and the table’s only chair was positioned across from the officer—like in an interrogation cell. The officer wore square gold spectacles that accentuated his sunken cheeks. His navy-blue uniform was regular, thin at the waist and swollen at the limbs. He smiled sinisterly. A white page graced the table. He drew columns on it with a ruler and abruptly began: “Dead or alive?” His tone was irreverent, even for such a question.

  He asked for my parents’ names, dates of birth and nationalities. He sneezed. A soiled handkerchief appeared from his pocket and ran over his hands. He asked where my parents worked, which school they went to and if they were Catholic or Protestant. “Hindu?” It seemed unacceptable. “Fetish?” he asked. I said no. He wrote “Other.”

  He said, “Spectacles?”

  “Yes, both of them.”

  “No, no. Versace? Armani?”

  He pulled out a pair (Nina Ricci) and positioned them on his head—he now wore two pairs. Adjusting himself in his seat he asked where I lived, where I had lived and the names of all the countries I had visited before Congo. He sneezed again. The page was spotted with droplets. With his handkerchief he held his nose; his finger probed inside his nostril. For two minutes he cleaned it. Then he asked what I had studied, and where, how I spoke French, for whom I was working. “No one?” He said suspiciously: “What are you doing here?”

  He squinted at me and slowly returned to his paper. But there was an error in the spelling of “journalist.” He sighed. With the ruler he crossed out the word and from his cupboard lifted two small bottles that were shaken spiritedly; the erroneous word was smudged with white paint. He blew over the page at an angle. We waited for it to dry. Then he wrote again, slowly, in clean schoolboy cursive, pen rolling over the paper. He sneezed. The wet handkerchief appeared. He brushed the page and wiped his pen. My patience wearing, I interrupted the ceremony.

  “Monsieur Officer. I’m in a hurry, please—those robbers were on the Boulevard two hours ago. If you move quickly you could still find my money!”

  He looked bemused. “But there’s a process to be followed.”

  I stood. “What process? Have you ever caught anyone?”

  He huffed. A framed photograph was produced from his drawer. Against a red Peugeot leaned four Congolese men, wearing sleeveless jackets, shades and pointed leather shoes. They looked like criminals, but this was the elite unit. “Team Cobra,” the officer said. “The country’s best.” He held the photograph in front of his chest like a winner’s plaque.

  “And what did they recover?”

  “The red car!”

  For a moment I considered it. And then, after a little discussion, I discovered the catch: their search could take days, weeks, even months; and all the while I would be paying. “Only business expenses,” said the policeman, sensing my apprehension. “Cobra will be working for you full-time.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed slowly, feeling the last of my hope evaporate. The chair clattered as I pushed it away. The policeman said, “Ei! The report costs ten dollars!” Again he sneezed. I stepped into the evening. “Who do you think you are, eh? This is the process in our country!”

  The traffic had eased, and I walked intentionally slowly. I was simultaneously thinking about if the money was truly lost—if I had forgotten some possible solution—and assessing what that loss would mean: immediate concerns, of food and rent, mixed with a broader, numbing anxiety that I could not place and that pervaded every possible future I could imagine. It became too much. I stopped thinking. From the outside for once the house seemed settled. Its light spilled into the courtyard, making the mud glow orange. Jose was wiping down the music system with a white cloth. “Ça va, Anjan?” He looked up, his expression tender.

  “Très bien, Jose.”

  Nana had sprayed my room with mosquito repellent, as a favor. But I felt nauseous inside. Squatting in the corridor I waited for the smell to leave, and I felt my neck where the robber’s nail had pierced the skin. The wound was inflamed; it hurt to the touch.

  Only when I lay in bed and looked at the overhead wooden beam did I feel the full horror. The scene of the taxi kept resurfacing. I spent hours picturing how I had entered the taxi. If only I had noticed how strangely the passengers had squeezed. The driver’s smile now seemed too friendly. I regretted that I had felt pity. I despised my good intentions. In the last visions just before I fell asleep I invented new scenarios that had me catch the driver unawares and beat him up. I seemed strong. And now I was able to hold a gun against his head.

  It was early morning when I called Mossi, the journalist. I had not told Nana or Jose, and even to Mossi th
e words did not come out: “Two thousand six hundred and fifty dollars.” The shock was still present. The crime had been like a violation that made me, the victim, feel ashamed that it had happened—it was as though not only my body but also my experience, memories and mind had been sullied.

  I decided to press on with my journalism plans. The decision didn’t require much thought: I had not prepared for any other kind of commerce, and I needed money. There was no time to dally now—I felt I should act, and that this would somehow soothe the growing anguish.

  When I told Mossi I’d had trouble he only said, “What do you need?” I was grateful for his discretion. I said I needed to find a story, something I could sell quickly. He paused, then said, “I’m interviewing a drug manufacturer. About bird flu. Don’t tell anyone, it’s hot-hot. He’s a fabulous man, a real magnate from India. Maybe you’ll get along.” I had expected him at best to give me a second-rate lead. This was a generous offer.

  I dressed in a hurry and ran water through my hair. And now the house seemed lively. Metal scrubbed dishes. Flames crackled. A bristled broom scratched cement. The neighbor’s chicken clucked in the yard. Bébé Rhéma gurgled on Nana’s hip. The baby’s nose dripped; Nana pinched out the mucus between her thumb and forefinger and flicked it to the ground.

  At my request Corinthian came to the taxi station and had a word with the driver. “I’ll need to be back in the evening,” I said to Corinthian. “May God bless you,” was his answer. He promised to come get me. It felt comforting to shake his hand. And everyone in the taxi saw that I was friends with the pastor.

  Mossi was outside the café, carrying a worn-leather bag, heavy with papers. He had brought a range of pens as well: blue, red, green. “Journalism is like art,” he said. “Sometimes even these colors are not enough.” For Mossi had his proper vision of the journalist life. He refused to own a car. “We should be close to the people. In your car how will you feel the pulse of the city?” He advised me to be thankful for my dingy room: I would live cheap, move like the locals and discuss the issues that mattered to them. “You are the High Representative of the little man,” he said, writing High Representative and scribbling extravagant messy circles around the words and all over the page.