Blood Is Dirt (19 page)

He roared in Fon again and the daughter came in again with some sausage and gherkins. Vassili put the lemon and mango away and brought out pineapple and papaya.

‘Why's the world going off to shit, Vassili?' asked Heike.

‘I tell you, Heike, you have no idea. That Gerhard, he no want to buy that jeep?'

‘Is that all?' I asked.

‘No, no. I just remember. He want a jeep. I got one. No, the world going off to shit because three days ago something happen. A Kazakh man came to me. Here. In my house. A tow-looking Kazakh bastard. We drink something. We speak Russian. He tell me he know I buy and sell car, maybe I want to try something different. Like what? You know what he got?'

‘A Lada?' said Selina.

‘This not funny business, my friend. That Kazakh bastard offer me plutonium. Weapons grade. He offer me an atomic bomb. I tell you. That's why the world going off to shit.'

‘Was he serious?'

‘He came to see me. He show me the paperwork, where it come from. I don't know.'

‘Were you interested?' asked Selina, pushing.

‘What am I going to do with atomic bomb and kids in the house too?'

‘He must have approached you for a reason,' said Selina.

Vassili gave her some pure Brezhnev in Red Square overlooking an army parade in -27°C.

‘I'm sure he didn't stop off just because you're a brilliant second-hand car salesman,' she said.

‘Who is she?' Vassili asked me, the room suddenly colder than Tomsk in January. I took him by the elbow and whispered to him about Napier Briggs's murder and how Selina had just buried him. He defrosted down to -2°C. Selina wouldn't let go.

‘I mean, Vassili, somebody wouldn't approach you and expose themselves to you as a nuclear-arms smuggler if for one second they thought you were a legitimate trader who would dump the security forces on them.'

An aircraft passed overhead on its way into Cotonou airport.

‘You tow bitch, that's what you are,' he said, and we laughed a little harder than we wanted to. Vassili poured the papaya vodka.

‘Maybe it's time for me to try the piri-piri,' said Selina.

Vassili lifted out a bottle of clear red liquid encased in ice. He poured a shot, it was as viscous as syrup.

‘This one cold,' said Vassili.

‘You going to answer my question, Vassili, or tell me to fuck off?'

‘Drink!'

She flipped it back, a shudder passed through her body. She replaced the glass.

‘Peppery,' she said, lightly, and Heike roared.

Vassili went back into the freezer and came out with something that he had to beat the frost off. He poured something into the glass that flowed like black-cherry treacle.

‘More old,' he said.

Selina was in a sweat now. Her shirt dark between her shoulder blades.

‘Some history,' said Vassili, looking at the glass. ‘In nineteen seventy-two they made coup in Benin. The president was successful and in nineteen seventy-five he made popular revolution. He made link with China, North Korea and Russia. I come here nineteen eighty-three. I am Russian. I do very well from contact with people. They like me. I am white but no imperialist. I know people in government and slowly the government making things easy for business. I am in good position.
Bon bon. Très fort avec le président.
Nineteen eighties very good for me. Then nineteen ninety the socialists out, and right-wing president come in. I'm still strong but I have to be careful. People look to my car business. I go more straight. Now this year we have another election. The socialist coming back. He an old man but they like him, say he going to win. Like Russian people the Béninois not all happy with the free-market reform. Maybe next month
je suis plus fort avec le président. ‘

‘The Kazakh made you an offer because of your contacts? I don't...'

‘Drink!'

Selina snapped it back. Another shudder and this time a cough. She tried to say something but no sound came out. Vassili leaned forward.

‘Pardon? F'ai pas compris.'

Selina's short
brosse
haircut darkened at the roots with sweat. Trickles appeared and ran down her jaw.

‘Spicy,' she said in a hoarse whisper.

Vassili grinned and opened the freezer. He pulled out a bottle so thick with ice that when he beat off the frost there was only a thin black line visible through it.

‘More old,' he said and tapped the top with a small hammer. He poured a liquid as thick and dark as Black Strap Molasses.

‘Do
not
drink that,' said Heike.

‘Men,' I said.

‘More history,' said Vassili.

‘Tell me,' said Selina.

‘In nineteen seventy-nine Russia invaded Afghanistan. I was eighteen years old. Afghanistan on the border there so the army take lot of boys from Kazakhskaja, Uzbekskaja and Turkmenskaja. Very tow young boys in that part Russia, but not as tow the Afghan. They killing and torturing and is very dirty war. I get out. Run away. Desert. There were five of us. Two Kazakhs, two Uzbeks and me. The only way is forward thruff the enemy and into Pakistan. We go back to Russia—you can lose yourself there but you have no life. So we go to Peshawar. The two Uzbeks killed by bandits in the Khyber Pass. Me and the Kazakhs make money smuggling guns. I leave to Karachi. Take ship to Dar, Durban, Luanda. I end here. Cotonou. The first country where I speak the language.'

‘The Kazakh bastard deserted with you?'

‘Drink!'

Selina tipped back the glass, sucking in the still viscous liquid. There was a two-second delay then she dropped the glass and clutched her throat. The sweat sprang out of her face and all down her arms and legs. She dropped straight to the floor, landing on her backside. Vassili roared in Fon and the daughter came in with a beaker of thin yoghurt which he poured down Selina's throat.

I picked her up and put her on the sofa. Vassili sent for more yoghurt and towels. She was crying now and clear snot ran in channels from her nose.

‘A tow bitch,' I said. ‘And a stupid one.'

‘Fuck you,' she mouthed.

The cuckoo gave us ten.

‘How the hell does he live with that thing?' asked Heike.

‘For the wife,' said Vassili, throwing a towel. ‘She like it.'

Selina pulled herself together, drank more yoghurt, towelled herself down, went to the door and spat out into the yard. Vassili returned the mature piri-piri to the freezer and pulled out some apricot.

‘Was I right?' asked Selina.

‘Yes. The Kazakh was my friend.'

‘Was?'

‘No. Still my friend. I tell him friendly like. No deal. He offer me old things. Antiquities from Afghanistan too. Lovely. I buy some. It's OK. But plutonium...'

We left soon after. Vassili gave us a calabash of yoghurt with some clingfilm over it. He said Selina was going to need it when she went pee-pee in the morning.

We dropped by the Milan and bought a pizza (no chillis) to take away. We drank cold beer and ate. Selina rolled herself a joint the size of a Havana cigar and smoked it with very little help from Heike or me. We'd got used to the African view of dope-smokers, that they were no-shirt losers, shoeless drifters, lower than Special Brew drinkers from back home.

At midnight Selina stood up and asked if we had any Ecstasy in the house. We shook our heads. She ran her hands over her breasts and hips and gave an impatient, exasperated jiggle.

‘I've got to go and get laid,' she said, ‘unless you two are game?'

Cotonou. Saturday 24th February.

 

‘Where are you going?' asked Heike.

‘See Bagado,' I said.

‘You're going to
leave
me with her?'

‘She came back?'

‘I barricaded the door in case she got in with us.'

‘She's...'

‘...an animal.'

‘I thought we were Generation “Excess” and they were just “X”.'

‘You think she's always been like this?'

‘Maybe her father dying...'

‘I
hope
that's it. You should have been in the back seat on the way to the
Milan.
More hands than Shiva on a Saturday night.'

‘I didn't know you were...'

‘Because you were talking a load of shit to the driver.'

‘Next time...'

‘You'll bring a bucket of cold water with you? I should be able to handle this on my own. I'm a middle-aged woman for Christ's sake. But she's so strong. She's got wrists on her like a sculler.'

‘You're
not middle-aged yet.'

Heike slumped back on to the bed.

‘I'm not even half way through?'

‘You've got to hit forty to be middle-aged.'

‘What makes you think you're going to live to eighty?'

‘Whisky.'

‘Selina's ageing me. My vital organs feel like pensioners.'

‘My theory is—too much testosterone.'

‘Yes, I've heard girls inject themselves with the stuff—it makes them predatory and as thick as pig shit.'

‘Why'd they want to be as thick as pig shit?'

‘It's a contraindication the drugs companies don't tell them about.'

‘I'm taking Selina to Lagos today. Give you a breather.'

‘That well-known city of moral rectitude and Christian virtue?'

‘I'll cufflink her to the bed.'

‘Wrong, Bruce.'

‘I'll be good.'

‘Kiss me, you idiot.'

 

The late morning was hot by way of a change. I took a
taxi moto
to Bagado's house. The courtyard, a large patch of beaten earth, half shaded by the spread of a mango tree, was full of people. His wife sat over an aluminium calabash of boiling oil while his eldest daughter gave the yam some stick. The middle girl, a real beauty called José-Marie, played with the boy, who'd taken to wearing shorts since I last saw him. He staggered up to me and pointed a finger and said: ‘
Yovo
.'
^*
They learn young. The rest of them I didn't know, and Bagado probably didn't know some of them either. He did know that they were all his responsibility and that there'd be more now that he'd got his job back. I was shown into the living room where there were two armchairs and a sofa which looked as if they'd been scrapping all night. Bagado was sunk deep into one of the armchairs with his mac on as usual and his hands steepled. I sat on the central ridge of the sofa so that I didn't disappear behind my knees.

There was a wooden table between us with four lace doilies and a china ashtray with the legend ‘I cum from Looe' in the middle. The walls were scrubbed clean to an uneven colour between grey and brown. On one was an English clock with barometer attached which read ‘Storm' permanently. Opposite Bagado was a reproduction Gauguin which he'd told me was called ‘Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?'. Questions I fought with daily and came out underneath.

The clock ticked. The family noise outside smothered now that the paterfamilias was in session.

‘I suppose you want a beer,' said Bagado.

‘Not if you'll starve.'

‘No, no. We have beer. Cashew?'

He roared a name. A threadbare curtain parted behind his head and a young man stepped into the room holding a tray with two glasses, an old whisky bottle full of cashew and a bowl.

‘We've been expecting you.'

The boy put down the tray, poured La Beninoise into two glasses and left.

‘That's André. He wants to go to university.'

‘A nephew?'

‘No. His father died of cancer last year. I've taken him in. He's a good boy. He will go to university. You never went?'

‘I didn't like school. Too many people telling you what to do.'

‘Followed the money. Thought it would buy you freedom. Mistake.'

‘Lectures, classes, tutorials, they didn't appeal.'

‘Yes, well, none of us is free.'

‘Bad week with Bondougou?'

‘There's never been a good week.'

‘Your Napier Briggs investigation?'

‘I was doing rather well. I know what happened now. I had a car located in all the right places. I had a Lagos registration, even a name, a suspect.'

‘You arrest him?'

‘He's out of the country. I needed permission to link up with Lagos.'

‘Now Bondougou's handling it?'

‘And I'm working on the drive-by shooting of a rice importer in the industrial zone.'

‘You going to give me that name?'

‘Emmanuel Quarshie, BSc. London.'

‘Did you know it when I hit you for the number?'

‘Of course.'

‘I could have used it.'

‘I didn't want him to know. I wanted you to work out where Mr Briggs spent his time in Lagos. You'd have scared him.'

‘I did anyway. Had a little rush of psychosis at the end of a tough week.'

‘Did he talk?'

‘If you're interested in Nigerian politics, which is not my kind of Muzak, yes, he talked. He implied that one of the presidential candidates lobbying the general tapped Briggs for some campaign funds. We didn't get round to which one.'

‘You were interrupted?'

‘He'd called some home help before I turned up.'

‘Do you think it's true?'

‘I had Napier down as a sardine swimming with shark. After Quarshie I started thinking he had some teeth. I thought if that toxic waste is the stuff Napier shipped then maybe he issued a little threat and if the shark was a presidential candidate and he saw a nasty exposé looming he'd have bitten back... hard.'

‘So he went into the
cocotiers
to pick up blackmail money?'

‘That's why he wanted me with him.'

‘But you
haven't
linked him to the toxic waste.'