Stringer (9 page)

“
Ei ei ei
! Who's making such a racket?” Nana shouted from her bedroom. My job would calm the nerves in the house, and go some way to resolving our animosity. There had been such a paucity of good news of late that without money, without proof of success or any outcome, this hope was enough. Nana gave me a hug, and I realized she hadn't smiled at me in more than a week.

Mossi could not be convinced to come to Satwant's soiree. “Are you sure?” I pleaded. “Come celebrate, man. It wouldn't
have happened without you.” But Mossi had promised to be with his family. “Go have fun,” he said. “It isn't every day that one has such luck.”

I wanted, at that moment, to be around people—many people. And this was also why I went.

As the taxi progressed toward the
ville
I tried to take stock, but I was moving so quickly from one thing to the next, even that morning seemed remote. I felt I had lost the thread of events; and the emotions of the day seemed blinding.

In such a mood I arrived at the Château Margaux, the party's venue. A double-storied colonial mansion, it was the sole source of light and noise on that tree-lined boulevard. Baritone voices boomed from its upper floor. One climbed the stairwell—and at the top arrived at two golden-colored rooms. All seemed to glitter. Two gowned women, bare shouldered, glanced at me, then smiled, then looked away; it produced a feeling of remote arousal.

I tried to plunge into the crowd and feel in the thick of things. The party was mostly of white people, with a smattering of Congolese dressed in their usual loud colors. In a corner stood a group of Indians, inspecting everyone, sipping ice water and soft drinks. The ambience was made intense by the elegance of dress and the liveried jazz band, too large for the space. The maître d' looked on impassively as servers in black waistcoats casually posed with their platters. I picked a glass (“Riesling,” came a whisper) and was almost accosted by a lanky bearded man who was smoking frantically and saying we had met before. Who would deny? I took it as part of the day's luck. Stefano was Italian and new to the UN, and seemed to take an instant liking to me—he mentioned a junior post vacant in his department. “We have interesting stories,” he said, ignoring the gray cloud over our heads and lighting another cigarette, its flame flirting with his dense manicured beard. He introduced me to his friends. Soon I felt immersed in the crowd and, separated from Stefano, again began searching for a place to fix myself.

When I first saw her I did not take particular notice. A doctor was telling me about preventable death, speaking calmly, but in moments betraying a hypertension. He made me a list of viruses; they were underreported, he said, only because African People were dying. So the African Doctor, deprived of funding and medicine, had become a promoter of African Disease. She was a tall woman, long-legged and with fair hair. She looked this way again.

And now she drifted in my direction. From the outset she looked disquieted—as if she wanted to say something, or needed help. Her pants and shirt, short sleeved with many pockets, stood out among the Château Margaux dresses. Without any sort of introduction she said, “You seem to know everyone here.”

“Not really.” I showed her my cache of business cards. “I'm on duty.”

“And drinking on the job.” I didn't respond, feeling it was small talk. She said her name was Natalie. I waited for her to say something substantial.

But she took her time. We picked fresh glasses of wine and watched people mingle. I learned she was from Quebec, and worked as a radio reporter tied to the UN. The men around us had now loosened their ties, and many of the women, whose light summer dresses showed freckled backs, were visibly intoxicated. They stood body to body, the communication laden with sexuality. The band also seemed worked up; the music was restless. I looked outside, to a yellow square of light that our window projected on the road. Two sentries with Kalashnikovs walked across the illumination, talking, smoking
stems
.

And suddenly their chatter seemed no longer idle. They appeared to be plotting. Look how they talk. In whispers, exclamations. The charm of the party warmed my shoulders again. Natalie lightly touched my back.

She had sensed the feeling. “You probably heard that Kabila received new tanks from China. For the elections.” Anderson
had mentioned it. “Everything is hot now,” she continued. “Kabila is growing nervous. My staff as well. Every day there are little disputes . . . but you know when you can tell something deeper is behind it all?”

“My family wanted to throw me out,” I said. “I think they're worried. If a riot breaks out, I'll be a target.”

“Your family lives in Kin?”

“I rent a room with a Congolese family. At Victoire. You should come.”

“I don't know where that is.”

She handed me her card. “For your collection.” And as she turned away I caught a gentle expression on her face, and noticed the feather-like hairs on her arms burnished by the light.

The conversation had felt mysterious; it seemed to have promised; suddenly I longed for a connection. I fingered her card. A musician blew his trumpet thrice and stopped playing. I looked around. Stefano was gone and I hadn't seen Satwant. I was among the last loiterers. The waiters looked lazy and ready to pack up; the band members hoisted off their heavy liveries and gathered their instruments. I pattered down the stairs. The sentries leaned against the gate. I lifted my chin at them, “Taxi.” But the cars had all been taken.

I walked down the empty road, aware of furtive sounds and movements in the bush. Long drains stretched along the roads in this part of town. Leaves around me dimly reflected stray light. The crunching sound of my feet carried. I reached a restaurant but there were no taxis. Three Congolese teenagers crouched over the hood of a pickup truck. They rose hastily and searched me with weary stares. I lifted my palms in greeting and asked if I could have a ride.

“Victoire?” he said. “Hop in the back.”

Two teenagers joined me on the pickup's flatbed. The sky was covered in moonlit popcorn clouds. We backed out of the parking lot and sped into the city. The roads were empty. I held on
to the vehicle's sides. One of the boys flicked a match alight; he huddled over the flame so it wouldn't extinguish. He offered it. I waved a hand. No, he said, it's a joint.

“Party?” I asked.

“Tupac.”

The boy was a rapper, and his friend a drummer. They played gigs at upscale restaurants, wearing dog tags with engravings and 50 Cent shirts. We arrived at Victoire and I jumped off. They gave me their business card; I said I'd surely visit.

There was no light in the toilet and I spit into the darkness, listening for the plop of liquid on liquid. I tried to throw up but drew nothing. I stumbled away from the commode and sat.

7

A
lmost immediately I ran a string of stories for the AP. I had never written a news story before, but my acquiring the job coincided with a spate of Congolese airplane crashes. I became proficient at reporting such deaths, identifying the type of near-antique aircraft, the often illegal cargo, the usually drunk Ukrainian pilots, and the number of unfortunate passengers. I kept close tabs on Bentley—as soon as he published a story I too hunted it down. So I was never first to report the news. But it was a way for me to learn my job.

I progressed to other kinds of news—which stunned me for appearing in a hundred newspapers across the world. It was a thrill not only to see my name printed but also to feel that Congo was suddenly getting more press. One story I wrote was about a moving army battalion that had contaminated twenty villages with cholera. And another was about Congolese soldiers kidnapped by Rwandan fighters hiding in the forest.

Almost every element of news I first heard on the UN radio station that employed Natalie. It was the country's best. Sometimes I found myself waiting to see if I would hear her voice. I never did. I tried to imagine what she might be doing.

And I started wanting to go to the war in Congo's east, the center of this region's crisis. My mind was there constantly. It was the main subject of almost all the news on the radio. It was perhaps the deadliest place in the world. It was there that a thousand people were said to be dying every day from the war and the resulting humanitarian emergencies. The violent cities of the east—and a town famous for its massacres called Bunia—started to seem half-familiar. I imagined I could soon visit. I started to dream of the journey. The desire to penetrate deeper into the conflict began to grow in me.

I received my first payment. It was a happy moment of sorts—I collected $340 from a neighborhood Western Union. I got home and paid Nana my share of the rent. She said at once that it would not be enough. Jose was still making nothing and the family would soon be broke. I would have to pay a greater share. I watched as she took the money from my hand. “Is this all they gave you?” Nana asked disbelievingly. She said we would not survive. I felt the pressure build within myself. I made the calculations. She was correct. Despite all those stories I would just barely be able to keep the family and myself going. The climb had gotten steeper—the challenge was in a sense only beginning.

I was becoming attached to the family, and feeling tangled with their fate. It was because, despite her harshness, Nana was counting on me so desperately. I could not simply desert her. And the job had made my possibilities entirely different. I started to wonder if I needed to take some sort of risk—to leap out of this rut.

So when I learned the Indian community in Kinshasa was going to hoist the flag for India's Independence Day, I decided to go. I thought I might find others like me, might find a way out—or some support.

The bumpy journey reminded me of a pebble road near my grandmother's house in India, where I had spent a few childhood summers. Just a few hours earlier, in the morning, she
would have stood salute in that house, facing the television—the national anthem set very loud as the army marched past the prime minister, a small man under a large red umbrella.

I stood in single file with sixty Indians in the embassy garden. The men wore white topees. The women were few, perhaps five. They covered their heads with hoods, to be modest, both for the national occasion and in front of the men. A large flag hung above us, limp on the pole. As I stood surrounded by countrymen, the songs conjured old sentiments; and the scene, though in an alien country, felt comfortingly familiar. We chanted the anthem solemnly, without tune.

After the singing was over the women, all married, with bindis on their foreheads, huddled in a corner and held their sari ends around their waists. The men talked in groups. Several pants slipped down the slopes of bellies and were strapped on with tight, thin belts. One older man, less rotund than the others, held his stomach with both hands, as if in mimicry, and came over. “What are you doing in Kinshasa?” he said, with the air of the old-timer assessing the newcomer.

I said I was a journalist and he touched his head—his tone softened, and he even thought he might have seen my name in the press. “The AP? Oh
my
. We don't get many literary people in our community.” His name was Bobby, and I saw from his card that he ran a store. I asked what he sold. “All and sundry” was his answer.

I inquired about the other Indians standing idly around us. Bobby was dismissive: “They're all into business.” It surprised me; I thought he could have had a dispute with Kinshasa's Indian community, and I became wary of being seen as his friend. But in his tone, and his comment about literary people, I also caught an idea that Bobby thought himself cultivated, and above the trader. The flag, meanwhile, had picked up. A heavyset Indian showed some guests into the embassy, presumably for cake and coffee; we were not invited.

Bobby offered me a ride. My address gave him a shock. It seemed to jar with his idea of my success, and he spent the drive trying to convince me to move out. “Locals have no culture, no civilization. Okay for business, but how do you
live
with them?” He knew an apartment block that provided meals of Indian food in tiffin carriers. I imagined a squalid setting, and stared glumly out the window. The car stopped—it was his shop. He asked me to get out; he was locking the car.

We were at a cement plaza, not wide on the street but stretching long into the neighborhood. Bobby hurried in, ringing the doorbell many times. His daughter appeared through a curtained doorway; without consulting me he told her to make
chai
. So I became the Indian guest—though I had been more or less kidnapped—to be fussed over.

I thought it must be a storeroom: the place was so dark, with a counter in front and boxes at the back, battered boxes strewn between artifacts: woodcuts, dirty boots, old radios, tins. Black and red cables covered everything; bulbs hung on wires from the roof. I was shown to a small clearing around a coffee table, with two high-backed chairs whose leather was pinned back by large metal buttons. The girl brought us tea.

Bobby crossed his legs affectedly and sipped. And I felt he was acting out some private fantasy. He didn't stop asking questions: about the UN's success, the purpose of the war, my travels. Feeling I had to live up to his expectations I related anecdotes from my trip to the beach. Minor information was a good way of demonstrating deeper knowledge; Bobby nodded, often as though not quite understanding, but always certain of my intelligence and keen to prove his intellect.

I wanted to take a taxi home but he insisted on driving. And just as he pulled in to Victoire's Shell gas station two street boys jumped on his rearview mirrors and broke them off. Embarrassed, I apologized, as if also to blame; it showed that I felt abnormal for living here. Under his breath Bobby cursed the
boys. He said we should have dinner, and his words sounded hopeful, not like mere pleasantry. I got out.

Over time I grew used to such regard. My job changed how people saw me: Nana now commented if my shoes lacked polish, if my shirts were not pressed. Bozene turned to me for opinions about society and politics.

And as people opened up it changed my view of them. Jose introduced me to his friends, pro- and anti-government, for lengthy night sessions over beer. I was often quiet, listening; and even when they became emotional and stammered, when it would have been natural for them to switch to Lingala, for my benefit they stayed with French. I found in Jose a special calm, an ability for defusing tension; he was a natural mediator. Nana too revealed new facets. I gained a sense of her independence—I learned she wanted to start a cooperative for nurses—and of her rebellion: she supported a different politician from Jose despite his pressure. I experienced that period as one of intensity, of expression, of self-assertion—and I felt I began to see the personalities of Bozene in the way that other Congolese saw them.

Then the emotions peaked one day. There was unexpected joy and all else was forgotten. Bébé Rhéma began to crawl, and earlier than the doctors had expected. How Nana squealed on the day of the first sighting: “Jose! Bébé Rhéma! Jose! You have to come!”

We rushed to the living room, wondering if something was the matter, but no: Bébé Rhéma breathed heavily and showed her two buckteeth and, scrambling over the cement, tried to make her way across the hall to her pacifier. The baby cried. Jose and Nana hugged. The baby rolled over and looked at all the people staring. She smiled, and she was gorgeous.

“Bé-bé!” Nana cooed.

Jose flung Bébé Rhéma in the air and caught her in his
arms. He rubbed his nose on hers. Gurgling filled the house. I remember Nana in the kitchen on that day, the towel draped over her shoulder and her face covered in sweat; but she smiled, she laughed thankfully; amid all her troubles and crises, Bébé Rhéma seemed her constant source of comfort, happiness and pride.

That evening Jose and Nana had friends over for rice and chicken. To this modest dinner I contributed three corner-store sausages. And when everyone had come we must have been nine at the table and on the sofas, anticipating the moment. But Bébé Rhéma only played with her doll; she would not crawl; she chuckled, as though mocking us.

Jose was roundly teased. “You called us over for
this
?” “What a hoax.” “This is like a Kabila project.” And Nana's chicken was praised.