Three

by Justin D'Ath

  I felt foolish. It was not what I had been talking about! I drank a sip of Baba’s Earl Grey tea, to hide my embarrassment.

  Then I asked, ‘What did you mean about my father pulling strings?’

  The general smiled. ‘You must have heard the rumours, Sunday. There are those who say that Magic Feet only got his place in the World Cup team because his father, the president, put pressure on the Zantuga Football Selection Committee.’

  ‘He would not do that!’ I said hotly.

  ‘They are just rumours,’ said Mbuti, shaking his big head. ‘I should not have mentioned it. Forgive me.’

  I was not going to forgive him for anything, but right now I was more concerned about the rumours. This was the first time I had heard of them.

  So many things had been kept secret from me!

  ‘I earned my place in the team,’ I said.

  ‘I know you did.’

  ‘So why are people saying these lies?’

  ‘They are probably jealous.’ Mbuti shrugged. ‘Perhaps they are thinking, why should one boy have everything?’

  Truly I did not have everything. I no longer had parents. I no longer had a home. And my girlfriend was lying in the army hospital with a bullet in her head. The man sitting opposite me caused all these things. And now he wanted me to play football! It seemed ridiculous.

  ‘What did you mean, Lionel, when you said that my country needs me?’

  Mbuti blinked. It was unlikely that anyone, apart from that white man Mustafa, would be bold enough to call him by his first name. But he did not correct me. He said, ‘We are only a small country, Sunday, and the eyes of the whole world are watching us right now. How wonderful if we could win the World Cup!’

  I remembered my conversation with Corporal Joseph. ‘I do not truly think we could win,’ I said. ‘Even if I did play, we could not beat Brazil.’

  ‘But you must play!’ Mbuti cried, with such passion that the guardsman over by the window became alert and half raised his AK-47. ‘Everyone is saying that Magic Feet must play!’

  ‘Not everyone,’ I reminded him. ‘You said there are people who think I did not earn my place in the team.’

  ‘Forget about them!’ he spluttered, his big face glistening with sweat. ‘I should never have mentioned them. They are unpatriotic! They are fools! You must think of your millions of fans!’

  I almost laughed in his face. He was like a little boy in his passion and his ignorance. ‘I do not have millions of fans, Lionel. There are hardly that many people in all of Zantuga.’

  ‘There are 2.4 million,’ said Mbuti. ‘But I am not talking about them. I’m talking about your fans in Italy, in Germany, in the United States of America!’

  This time I did laugh. ‘Nobody has heard of me in those places!’

  Mbuti breathed out loudly through his nose. It was plain to see that I had made him angry. But he did not argue. Instead, he picked up one of the newspapers, rose from his chair and brought it around the desk to me. Rustling through its many pages, Mbuti found what he was looking for and dropped the open newspaper into my lap.

  I balanced my cup and saucer on the armrest of my chair. There in the newspaper was a half-page photo of me, taking a pass from Isaac Mbanefo. The big headline said:

  Football the Loser

  ‘That’s The Times from England,’ Mbuti said. ‘It’s one of the biggest and most respected newspapers in the world.’

  I was still staring at the headline. ‘It says I am a loser.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Mbuti leaned down and tapped the article below the headline with a big, sausage-like finger. ‘Read it, Sunday! It says football is the loser.’

  ‘Why is football a loser?’

  ‘Read it, for heaven’s sake!’ Mbuti cried. But then he explained anyway: ‘They think you are dead. They think you aren’t going to play in the World Cup. That’s why they are saying that football is a loser. The thing football has lost, Sunday, is you!’

  My brain was too full. I tried to read, but it was hard to make sense of the English words before my eyes, with my parents’ murderer standing so close to me. I could smell Mbuti’s aftershave and a whiff of dry-cleaning fluid from his shirt or his trousers. Also there was a skunky smell from my own clothes, after a night in the police cells, but I did not care. My eyes kept darting back to the photo. It seemed unbelievable that a picture of me was in a newspaper that had come all the way from England!

  ‘And that is just one of them,’ Mbuti said, as if he could see into my brain. He walked back around the desk and picked up another newspaper. On the page he showed me was the same photo, but the headline was in Arabic. Then Mbuti held up a newspaper with Greek writing, and I was in that also!

  ‘They are writing about you all over the world, Sunday,’ Mbuti said. ‘You’re a superstar!’

  I still did not fully understand. Superstar?

  Unable to concentrate on the article – mightbe Mbuti would let me finish reading it later – I carefully folded the newspaper closed. And got another shock.

  On the front page of The Times from England was a photo of my dear father!

  Mbuti was in the photo, also. He and Baba were shaking hands. The headline was even larger than the one on the Sports Page.

  Tyrant vs Tyrant

  What did that mean? There was only one tyrant in the photo and that was Mbuti – the tyrant who later would murder my father. My eyes moved down to the article:

  The troubles in the tiny, oil-rich African nation of Zantuga escalated last Friday when military leader, General Lionel Mbuti, overthrew long-standing president, Raphael Balewo, in a surprise coup d’état.

  President Balewo gained worldwide condemnation fifteen years ago for his handling of an oil workers’ strike that closed down the nation’s 26 oil refineries. The strikers were seeking better living conditions after a fire in a crowded apartment building killed 500 workers and their families. When negotiations between the workers and government-owned ZantOil broke down, Balewo ordered his army to put an end to the dispute.

  In the deadly conflict that followed, an estimated 8,000 strikers died.

  The president’s wife, Marigold Balewo, was also killed in Friday’s bomb blast.

  Other casualties of the coup include the couple’s football-prodigy son, Sunday ‘Magic Feet’ Balewo (see ‘Football the Loser’, p. 145) and Chief of Police Solomon Kimutai.

  General Mbuti, who is known by his followers as ‘the Lion’, has denied any involvement in last Friday’s bombing, despite numerous allegations . . .

  ‘Give me that!’ Mbuti cried. He came hurrying back around the desk towards me with his hand outstretched. ‘It’s all lies!’

  The guardsman over by the window had no idea what was happening, only that his general was angry. He raised his AK-47 again and pointed it in my direction.

  I handed The Times to Mbuti.

  ‘It’s all lies,’ he repeated, in a softer voice. ‘The journalists know nothing. It was that traitor Kimutai behind the coup. He was the traitor who murdered your parents, Sunday; the traitor who had you kidnapped. If my soldiers hadn’t dealt with him and his rebels on Friday, this country would be overrun by our enemies now. Not only would they have our oil, but we would all be dead!’

  I watched as Mbuti carefully folded the newspaper so that the ‘Tyrant’ article was no longer showing. He was partly right about the lies, I thought. The bits about my father were lies. So were the reports that I was dead. But the rest of the article sounded true enough. Mbuti, not Chief of Police Solomon Kimutai, was responsible for the coup d’état. Not only had he murdered my parents, but he had tried to have me killed, also.

  And that was a big mistake.

  I was famous! People all over the world knew about me, and not just followers of football. And when they thought I was dead, killed by General ‘the Lion’ Mbuti, millions of people had turned against him.

  All over the world, they were calling him a tyrant.

  Now I understood why he
wanted me to play for Zantuga in the World Cup. It was not for our country, it was for himself! Not only did he want to show the world that he did not kill me, but General Mbuti wanted to be seen as my patron and my friend.

  I held up my cup and rattled it impatiently in its saucer.

  ‘Do you want more tea, Sunday?’ he asked.

  I nodded. ‘With a little less milk this time.’

  I waited in my chair while General Mbuti served me more tea like one of the Palace servants.

  What happened to them? I suddenly wondered.

  ‘Here is the deal,’ I said, taking back my filled cup without thanking him. ‘I will play in the World Cup. But first there is something you can do for me.’

  30

  Two Times a Fool

  They kept me waiting for three days.

  ‘Yes, the American girl is recovering, sir’, I was told, again and again, by a soft-speaking hospital administrator on the other end of the hotel telephone. ‘No, she is not yet well enough to have visitors, sir’, ‘I am sorry, sir, but you must be patient’.

  It was hard to be patient. I had been brought to a two-room apartment on the fourteenth floor of the Zantuga Sheraton. There were two guards in the corridor outside my door. They changed shifts every six hours. When I asked if I could go outside for fresh air, they said no and closed the door again.

  I was a prisoner.

  And I felt even more isolated in my hotel apartment than when I was locked in the We Care warehouse. At least there I had had Three for company. And a mobile phone. The phone here only connected me to hotel reception downstairs; or to the person at the hospital, who said the same thing every time. They would not let me phone anyone else.

  Even TV would have been good. But both the TVs in my apartment would not pick up any stations. When I asked Reception, they said it was the same everywhere since the ‘liberation’. The radios were not working, also.

  ‘Can I have newspapers?’ I asked.

  ‘There are no newspapers,’ they said. ‘All businesses are closed.’

  ‘What about newspapers from other places?’ I asked, my visit to the President’s office still fresh in my mind. ‘Can you get for me The Times from England?’

  ‘I am sorry, Mr Balewo, but there are no newspapers from anywhere.’

  Liars! Everyone was lying to me!

  Mbuti was behind it. He had had me brought here. They were his guards outside my door. He did not want me to hear or read any more news stories that said bad things about him.

  Tyrant vs Tyrant.

  How much of it was true? Could Baba have been responsible for the deaths of all those people? It was unthinkable!

  But what about the lack of fire escapes in the oil company-owned apartment building where I had first hidden from Three? As president of our country, my father had been president also of ZantOil – he must have known what was going on. Was that why the woman in apartment twelve had called him a he-goat?

  If Baba had done these terrible things, someone would have told me – someone at the palace, someone I played football with, someone at school. Holly would have told me! A girl would not keep something like that from the boy she had kissed. But Holly was from America – she might not have known.

  I felt sick in my stomach. Had everyone been hiding the truth from me all my life? Even my poor dead mother? Were they all afraid to tell the truth about my father, because it was too horrible to speak these things to his son?

  For the first time in my life, I wished I had taken more interest in the affairs of my country, not just in football.

  Was Baba no better than the man who had had him murdered?

  I shivered.

  It was all lies, I told myself, just like Mbuti said.

  But how could I believe even one word that came from Mbuti’s own lying mouth?

  Aaaaee! It was driving me crazy to think about these things while I was locked in the apartment. There was no way to find out what was true and what was lies.

  But one day I would know the truth and I would deal with it then.

  Apart from my lack of contact with the outside world, the apartment had everything I needed – DVDs, glossy magazines, a basket full of chocolate bars, potato crisps and biscuits from a cupboard that was refilled every day; there was even a pile of brand new clothes. Some were still in their plastic wrappers and they all fitted me perfectly.

  There was room service, too. I had only to pick up the house phone and call Reception at any time of the day or night, and they would bring me anything I wanted. Almost anything. No newspapers. And I was not allowed my freedom.

  It was a five-star prison.

  I was truly angry with Mbuti. He had had me brought to the Zantuga Sheraton straight after we made our so-called ‘man-to-man’ agreement in my father’s office. But he had not said that I would be held prisoner until I could visit Holly – that was not part of our deal. I had tried calling him, but all calls had to go through Reception and they must have had orders not to let me phone anyone but the hospital.

  The guards out in the corridor would not answer my questions, either. And the hotel maids and service staff went silently about their business of changing my sheets and cleaning my bathroom like people with no voices. It was so frustrating! But at least I knew that Holly had had her operation and was recovering.

  They would not have lied to me about that.

  But what about Three? Was it still alive? Aaaaee! I wished now that I had not pushed the stack of cartons across the opening into our hiding place. If Three woke up, it would be a prisoner in there! I had not even left it any food!

  One thousand times, I said to myself: It does not matter. The brid was going to die anyway. It is no longer your concern.

  But I missed its company. There were DVD movies to watch, magazines to read, and one of the guards had brought me a half-size football to kick around the apartment. Even so I kept thinking about Three and remembering all our conversations. I remembered how the brid had put its arm around me the first time I cried about my parents.

  I remembered how I had lied to Three and said I was its friend.

  The second day in my apartment prison was Baba’s birthday. It was a truly bad day. I missed Baba. I missed both my parents, too-too much! Thinking about them – but trying not to – I kicked the football hard-hard at the tall lamp beside the TV and smashed its glass into a thousand pieces.

  Did Baba really order the deaths of 8,000 people?

  After, when I was picking up the bits of glass to hide in the rubbish bin under the kitchen sink, I cut my finger. It was not a deep cut, it did not hurt. But when I looked at the blood, I could not stop the tears from coming into my eyes. They were tears for my parents, for Holly, for Mr Kimutai and the dead dark-glasses men, for Mr Nwosu and for everything else in my life that was gone.

  They were tears, also, for Three – because it might be awake in our hiding place, trapped there, and all I had left for it was one cup of water.

  Finally, on the morning of the third day, the door opened and two guardsmen wearing tan armbands entered my apartment. One handed me a large plastic bag.

  ‘Put these on, sir,’ he said. ‘Then come with us.’

  I looked into the bag. Inside was a Zantuga football jersey, black shorts and a pair of green and purple football socks. All brand new. When we made our agreement, Mbuti had told me that the World Cup team had a training session on Thursday. Today was Thursday. But I had said to Mbuti that I would not play football, or even train for football, until after I had seen Holly.

  ‘Where is the general?’ I asked.

  ‘Down in the car,’ said one of the guardsmen.

  ‘Tell him to come up.’

  Both soldiers looked worried. ‘He sent us up to get you,’ said the one who had spoken.

  I tossed the bag of football clothes onto a sofa and sat down next to it. ‘Tell him to come up,’ I repeated. ‘I want to talk to him here.’

  Mbuti arrived two or three minutes later. He wo
re a white-white ceremonial uniform with golden epaulettes, golden braids and so many medals that he clink-clinked when he breathed. And he was breathing quite fast.

  ‘What is this all about?’ he demanded.

  I leaned back on the soft sofa. It felt good to be sitting with my legs crossed while the general stood facing me like a servant.

  ‘First, take me to see the girl,’ I said. ‘And if it is true that she is recovering, I will play football, like we agreed.’

  There was a big gold-plated pistol in a white leather holster on Mbuti’s belt. Now his sausage-fingers tap-tapped against it. ‘They are waiting for us at the hospital,’ he said, his medals trembling like the leaves of a fever-tree when a storm is coming. ‘So would you kindly go into the other room, Sunday, and get dressed.’

  ‘I am dressed,’ I said, rising from the sofa. ‘Lead the way, Lionel.’

  ‘First change into these clothes,’ said Mbuti. He picked up the lumpy bag and handed it to me. ‘We don’t want to disappoint your fans.’

  I had no idea what he was talking about (what fans?) but I had been waiting for so long to see Holly that I did not test his patience any further. Taking the bag into the hotel bedroom, I closed the door and tipped the clothes onto the bed.

  The Zantuga team jersey had my name on the back in large white letters: Balewo. It was my father’s name also. I would wear it to honour him.

  Did he use his power as president to get me into the team? I wondered. Did he kill all those people? Aaaaee!

  I padded back into the main room in my green and purple socks. ‘What about boots, Lionel?’

  ‘Sneakers will do, for now,’ Mbuti said. His eyes travelled up and down me. ‘You look very smart, my boy.’

  I went quickly to fetch my sneakers. Only two people on this earth had ever called me ‘my boy’, and now they were gone. Murdered by this traitor, who once had pretended to be my uncle.

  If Mbuti thought I was ever going to trust him again, he was a fool!

  And he would be two times a fool to trust me.

  31

  Tricks and Lies

  I had almost forgotten that Holly was in the army hospital, until our small convoy reached the guard post. The two sentries at the gate came to attention and saluted when they saw their commander-in-chief sitting next to me in the back seat of his shiny black stretch limousine. They lifted the boom gate and waved us through.