Sussex Drive: A Novel (32 page)

Authors: Linda Svendsen

Tags: #Humour

B
Y THE TIME
L
ISE AND
Corporal Robard landed in Bujumbura, Greg had anecdotally mentioned her mission at the conclusion of a press conference about the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics.

René had returned to Rideau Hall to burn sacred sweetgrass with Niko.

After a fitful sleep at the U.S. embassy, Lise was joined by four other quasi-official envoys: Lawrence Apoonatuk, renaissance pundit and current Canadian ambassador to France; Greg’s former Chief of Staff, now an International Monetary Fund mandarin; and an American, Alexander Manson, introduced as a “Bush-squared” fixer, who’d been active in both Republican regimes. Manson seemed cozy with Greg’s former Chief of Staff.

The fourth
homme
worked in the Australian Privy Council: Paul Leggatt. A relation.

Lise didn’t trust any of them even to open her Pellegrino.

They flew by Chinook with a Black Hawk escort from Burundi to Jolie Ville. Their plan for a briefing with Jean-Louis Raymond kept changing, primarily because they couldn’t make contact. Lise was able to get through to Samuel, her sister’s husband, and then finally reached Solange, who’d indeed been sworn in as the interim veep. Lise spoke to her as the Chinook sped over the spiced jungles and terraced hillsides of St. Bertrand.

“The last time you were here, Excellent sister,” Solange said, “President Raymond was seized and deported.”

“I had nothing to do with that.”

“You were obviously tracked.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I
am
a head of state, Solange—”

“So am I—”

“Well, you weren’t then.”

“You’re flying in with assassins.”

Lise stared at the Ray-Ban men, her fellow envoys in milky chinos and Boss polos, except for Apoonatuk’s Armani ensemble. She held the phone up like a mic. “Tell me now if Navy SEALs are en route to remove Raymond.”

Manson’s jaw twisted, a puppet dino’s.

“If that’s the case, we need to turn this bird around to Bujumbura,” Lise said daringly.

None of the men answered. Paul Leggatt hadn’t even said hello to her yet.

“See,” Lise said, back on the phone.

“It’s not the weather, little sis. There’s no forecast. They’re just going to do it.”

“The allies would appreciate a sit-down to see what’s on Raymond’s mind. It will be a ten-minute talk.
C’est tout
.”

“Un instant, s’il te plaît.”
Silence.

Two minutes later, Solange was back. “Jean-Louis agrees. Our terms. Our turf.”

Lise signed off.
“À bientôt.”

“May I have your attention, please?” Robard jumped in immediately, waving an arm. “May I have your attention, please? Your Excellency, gentlemen, your attention—I need your attention. We have a
CENTCOM
update.”

Lise and the Ray-Bans paid attention.

Robard summarized quickly as they were only a few minutes from Jolie Ville airspace. Jolie Ville was experiencing scattered gunfire and grenade blasts; the death toll was in the hundreds. The capital had been without electricity or water for a day and the food supply was disrupted. The airport was closed. Looting was anticipated. The previous Western-backed president was MIA. International aid agencies were ramping up but days away from on-the-ground assistance. The nearest U.S. forces were back across the border in Burundi. The Black Hawks would circle the outskirts of the city.

To complicate matters, Mount Agogo, the volcano overshadowing the city in the south, had started to seismically act up. Hundreds of earthquakes, minuscule on the Richter but nerve-racking in number, had set a record for swarm activity. It was expected to blow within minutes, knocking off the spatter cone and releasing the lake of lava within the crater at speeds of sixty miles per hour. All this with the
attendant silica content of pyroclastic flows, ash, cinder, smoke and dust—none of it good for airborne craft.

Nobody mentioned pathetic fallacy.

Or reversing direction.

Alexander Manson continued undressing her in his head. It was obvious.

Lise was surprised when the Chinook made landing by the Former Slave Depot on the shore of Lake Victoria. “I thought Raymond HQ was at a Catholic church,” she said to Robard.

Robard pointed at the sooty white steeple set in amongst the eucalyptus.

“Let’s say howdy,” Manson said. “See what this
hombre
has to say.”

Before they could exit the Chinook, it was surrounded by soldiers—a mix of indigenous St. Bertrand militia and Chinese military.

“Only the lady,” the leader said. “Her only.”

“We all go,” Robard said. “She can’t go unaccompanied.”

The militia and soldiers replied in a chorus of fluent pointed Kalashnikov.

“Then she can’t go,” Manson said.

“Let her go,” Apoonatuk advised.

“My sister’s in there,” Lise replied.

“They’re expecting her,” Apoonatuk said.

Manson slipped a capsule into her fist. “It’s quick,” he said. “You’ll be dead. Before you feel. Anything. I like. You.”

“What?” Lise held it in her palm, then worried that it could eat into her skin and kill her in seconds. She stuffed it deep in her pocket.

“Or use it. On somebody else. In a pinch.” Manson nodded meaningfully.

“You need to get back here fast, Your Excellency,” Robard said, gazing at the volcanic smoke. “Pronto.”

Paul Leggatt just watched her.

Lise stepped out of the helicopter and drunk-walked up the trembling stone-lined path toward the wooden church. The Chinese soldiers escorted her. The Africans, with the Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders, remained with the Chinook. The scene felt movie-like, as if these extras weren’t taking their roles seriously enough. Over the white picket fence, she could see the slave sculptures in the pit: the family chained together and stuck in place. Ashes settling on their heads and shoulders.

When the ground shook again, a flock of papyrus canaries spilled upward into the darkening sky and took off for the north. These were the birds that had awoken her when she was a child, curled in the same bed as her sister; they’d imitated them and irritated their father, and he’d been so angry he’d chopped down the tree they nested in.

Lise was swept along through the nave, to the chancel where Raymond and his workers were buried in a serpentine set-up of CPUs and rudimentary monitors; it also served as a primitive broadcasting centre. His suit still hung from his frame and the arm of his spectacles was taped with a Band-Aid.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet,” she said.

“Solange,” Raymond said.

Her sister emerged from behind the apse. She was wearing a boxy business jacket and very casual shorts, dressed like a news anchor for whom above-the-waist viewing was what counted. Solange nodded toward them and kept going.

“She’s talking to Clinton,” Raymond said. “Hillary.”

“It takes a village,” Lise said.

Solange finished her conversation and approached them. “
Allo
, Lise.”

Lise embraced her sister, and the smell of deep fear, perspiration and the essence of their mother. “I have been told that I can’t stay long. Mount Agogo—”

“We understand,” Raymond said.

“Let’s backtrack,” Lise said. “As you know, I asked the government of Canada to take steps to ameliorate problems here. St. Bertrand was granted debt relief, was it not?”

“Yes,” Raymond said. “And right after Canada wiped out our debt, the IMF devalued our currency and we owed other loaner nations quadruple the amounts—staggering sums.”

“Buggering numbers,” Solange said.

“Beggaring. So it made no difference,” Raymond said.

“It made it worse,” Solange said.

The ground shook violently under them. The church swayed and rattled.

“How about telecommunications?” Lise said. “We didn’t privatize that, right?”

“No. You didn’t. But France did, and then Canadian telecommunications firms got a cut.”

“A hefty cut,” Solange said.

“The people of St. Bertrand have not seen a dollar.”

“Or heard a ring tone.”

Lise felt sick. It was hopeless, wasn’t it? “Okay, so what about China? I see by your soldiers you’ve managed to get them onside. And they’re no slouch.”

“China’s stepped into the Canadian role,” Raymond said.

“Seizing our resources and squeezing us later, Lise.”

“Although they’ve been critical these last months,” Raymond acknowledged.

“So we’re done here.” Lise nodded sagely. “I’ll take the message back to the Prime Minister.”

“Have a safe trip,” he said. “I’m going to deliver the evacuation message to Jolie Ville now,” and he turned and did exactly that. “My fellow citizens,” he began, “people of Jolie Ville and neighbouring villages …”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.” Lise pulled Solange aside.

“Odds are zero.”

“Do you remember the day we left for Canada? I remember you packed all your Babar books in a little suitcase.”

“You,” Solange said, “hung on to your doll for dear life.”

Lise pulled her close and kissed her older sister’s hot forehead.

Solange said,
“C’est bien que tu aies eu un fils, Lise.”

Robard rushed in through the narthex. “Your Excellency,
come now. We have to go. It’s going to erupt. The city’s evacuating. The Black Hawks are leaving.”

Solange squeezed her arm. “Don’t get in that helicopter.”

“I don’t have a choice,” Lise said. “I’m not afraid of ‘detailing.’ I’ve been deeply ‘detailed’ before.”

“I’m telling you—” Solange said. “Is Leggatt’s stepbrother on it?”

“Yes.”

Solange slipped something heavy and gun-like into Lise’s blazer. “Take it.”

Lise slipped her hand around it. It was a gun.
“Es-tu folle?”
Then she felt the nub of Manson’s pill, and she pinched it between her fingers and pressed it into the fist of her sister. “And here’s cyanide.”

“Ah,” Solange said, dropping it into the interior pocket of her jacket. “Take one and don’t call me in the morning.”

“Not for just any headache,” Lise said forcefully.

“Eh hehn. Eh hehn.” And then Solange shoved her out the door. Lise heard it barred.

Lise stayed imperfectly still for a second outside the church in the darkening morning. Banana trees heaved on the swaying earth; the waves of the lake were whipped into fierce oceanic whitecaps. Like volleyballs on fire in a deranged video game, bombs of magma randomly struck, one hitting a stack of used tires only a short distance away.

Robard wildly beckoned her into the Chinook. Apoonatuk, Manson and the IMF rep were already strapped in and Manson was clearly ordering the pilot to take off.

“Come! Come now! Come now! It’s going to explode.” Robard.

Manson looked at her and pointed to the lake. “Lise,” he said. “Go by water.”

“What?”

“Get! A boat.”

The earth undulated. Lise fought to keep her balance.

Paul Leggatt fished for her hand. “Get the fuck on!” he said.

“I’m staying,” Lise yelled, waving him off. “Go!”

Lise was stunned as the Chinook miraculously started to ascend. It was immediately caught in an updraft and lifted heavenward, as if scooped by a celestial express elevator only to be given a good shake by God. Then it settled and flew northward over the lake, following the invisible path of the papyrus canaries.

Lise waited for an explosion. And waited. Still. And then she didn’t hear the Chinook anymore.

Three Toyota SUVs sped away up the dusty road and made the left onto the Jolie Ville highway, really a one-lane bus road to Burundi. Solange and Raymond were gone.

Lise didn’t hesitate. In her job with
oui
Care, she’d seen a lot. The Q-tip arms and wobbling craniums of malnourished infants, teenaged mothers with obstetric fistula, genital mutilation, and the impact of a banquet of diseases: Rift Valley fever, malaria, cholera and the rest. Perhaps more importantly, she’d handled herself when she’d been robbed at gunpoint at her neighbourhood Caisse Desjardins
withdrawing cash on Christmas Eve fifteen years ago. Instinct had kicked in.

Her strongest drive was to get onto the water and far away. At the dock of the Former Slave Depot, now a tourist stop, she saw the red-sailed dhow used to illustrate the mode of transportation for slave trafficking. A man threw a goat, a kid, to a woman and children on the dhow. He was in a big hurry and obviously stealing the boat and live provisions. She bolted toward them, running pell-mell down the dock.

“Take me with you,” she said.

The man turned. “No.” He shoved her. “Go ’way.” The woman on the dhow started yelling at her too in an indigenous dialect but it was clear she wasn’t extending any hospitality.

Lise said, “Money. I’ll buy more goats.” She pointed at the kid.

He ignored her, working quickly to cast off.

“I have Visa.”

The woman pelted her with carcasses gutted from coveted Nile perch. The perch had decimated the fish that had sustained St. Bertrand natives for centuries and was flown out to European dining tables.

Lise pulled out the gun and shot it in the air. She’d once practised with the King’s Own Guards, the first time she’d worn the uniform. She had their complete attention.

“I’m on the boat,” she said.

He offered a hand. Still keeping the gun trained on him, Lise swung herself across the dhow and then stayed a safe distance from them.

The dhow reeked of rank bodies, pee, and excrement.
Les poissons
. The children, with their bloated tummies, looked away from her, their hands busy stroking the kid. Lise detected shifty ideas in the eyes of the father.

She kept her gun pointed at them. “I am the head of state of Canada. I shoot to kill. Bujumbura, now.
Vite
.”

A second later, the volcano erupted.

MOTHER MARY’S SONG TO THE “OTHER” MARY

(with thanks to A.L. Webber and T. Rice)

From
Temptations: The Rock Opera

You do know how to love him

How to give, how to serve him

He’s the boss, the biggest boss

In these past few years, he’s grown so much

He seems like someone else.

You do know what to do next.

You understand why he’s the leader.