The Great Agony & Pure Laughter of the Gods (25 page)

He needed to be strong, he told himself. But in the limpid water, he saw his life in slow motion: Risto with his parents; Risto with his siblings; Risto with Néné in a wedding gown, playing children’s wedding games; Risto in military uniform in Kahuzi-Biega National Park; Risto with a machete butchering another child soldier who had disobeyed; Risto holding a smoking gun over a shaking, half-dead Mai-Mai soldier; Risto in Panzi hospital, his crutches by the bed, a crying girl with a baby; Risto running away from ghosts, voices; Risto in a broken boat on Lake Tanganyika. The pictures were so real, so vivid, they took him back, he was standing before a jury with eyes that judged, hearts that could not pardon, he was shaking without control.

There was so much hot hair stuck in his muscles, in his arteries, in his stomach, that his nostrils couldn’t contain it. He swelled, he shook. The last picture in his head was of Néné putting the bracelet on his wrist. He wanted to touch that bracelet, but there was no more strength; he could hear voices calling his name, echoing from faraway mountains, the voices of Mr Thomaso and Mama Lemwalu, both calling together; he couldn’t see them.

Mr Thomaso was the first to touch him, feeling for his heartbeat, racing, dying down. Mama Lemwalu had run to the phone. Mr Rashid had run for his car.

The car left dust and wind in the flea market as it went, leaving women guessing at all sorts of theories.

The clinic had no doctor, just a trainee nurse, who had nothing in mind but an injection for malaria. Mr Rashid refused; the poison in Risto’s bloodstream was not malaria. By the time a man in a white lab coat arrived, Risto was begging to be left alone. He knew his illness, he said; he needed to be alone.

After this, Risto changed. He wanted to be away from any gathering. He enjoyed loneliness. Silence became his way of talking; people’s eyes annoyed him, their stories bored him. He would spend an hour looking at the moving branch of a tree, or sitting on a remote rock where he listened to the wind whispering. Nothing seemed interesting to him any longer, and he would sometimes cry for unknown reasons. In the early hours in the tomato field, he would sit in the sand singing lamentations, staring at the sky, asking heaven impossible questions. He wished time could go back; he wished he could touch his past; he wept and refused Merci’s consolation, and this in turn made Merci cry.

Risto’s life story had become more important than Bi Maimuna’s braiding job. Every day, a large crowd gathered at her place to listen to her analysis of the situation. There were rumours that the interviewers might be fired because they had caused the boy’s collapse and withdrawal.

Mr Thomaso had argued that Risto should be resettled in the United States, as he had clearly suffered great trauma and danger. Many in the camp consulted the most powerful witchdoctors and made sacrifices so that their applications would be successful; others fasted and prayed for weeks, then celebrated for days and nights when they were approved.

But Risto’s attitude worried everybody; he ignored Mr Thomaso and his proposal. Nobody could understand the strange boy, or read his face, or guess what was in his mind, and Bi Maimuna had no fresh news, merely speculations. But an anonymous reporter was the only one with breaking news. She had seen Risto talking to himself as he held a bracelet against his chest, crying and saying strange words with no meaning.

The entire camp expected something unprecedented, something that would leave a mark in the history of Marathan: if not a thunderstorm, death; if not death, madness. The majority agreed upon thunder and death; they read it in the eyeball of the sky; they said these two things followed the boy with the mysterious history. Some said what had happened to the boy was the result of a curse. Others believed that his ancestors were very upset. So they concluded that the boy had seen a warning sign; a storm was coming, death would follow.

Christmas arrived in the camp, but it was invisible. Risto wanted to see Christmas lights, hear the voices of children singing Christmas carols, but there were none. There were no flowers on doors, no Christmas trees in houses; all was dull and sad. He thought that if he could speak to his family, maybe their voices would heal his wounds. But when he was told that the Cellphone Man had been relocated to Canada, he whirled in such a bizarre mood that he no longer understood who he was anymore. He wondered what his family were doing on this special day. He kept wishing there was a payphone nearby, but it was a sterile wish. He was stuck in a dull maddened camp, angry and hungry, missing his family.

Christmas was a sacred time at home. A week before, the bells of the Catholic church rang each night with a special melody, and their lights and decorations could be seen from afar. At the same time, everyone sang carols, children shouted and called ‘Noël’ everywhere. There were decorations on the doors and gates of every home, and each child looked for flowers and a banana tree for the house. At home, Risto had been in charge of his family’s flower garden; his sisters needed his permission to cut even one flower, but at Christmas they were allowed to cut whatever they needed, and even to give flowers to friends. He cut a banana tree in the garden to make the Christmas tree; his father bought Christmas lights, and his sisters did the decorating with his mother.

On Christmas Eve, his mother did not sleep; she would be busy baking and watching big boiling pots until midnight, when the streets sang that Jesus was born. At 4am, the whole family walked to church en masse. Christmas morning was the beginning of the party; the new clothes, the precious gifts that each child longed for. The nativity scene was performed at churches, followed by much singing and sweets for each child. The party mood brought children from different faiths to the churches, mostly to those with sweeties to give away.

In Marathan, Christmas existed on the calendar, but not in people’s lives; they were busy scratching for things at the flea market, searching for fuel, looking for basic things that could keep them alive. There was no gathering of family or friends in the camp. Risto realised how much precious family time he had missed, how much he had not celebrated. And this day hurt terribly; it took him back to rivers of memories he had seen and could no longer touch; he understood now that the simplest things gave his life the most meaning. The healthy noise of children in the streets, the soothing Christmas carols, the smiles on the faces of the parents: these precious memories had injured his fragile soul; he could no longer hide within them when his soul craved happiness.

That night was very different to all his previous nights in the camp; he had hoped for Christmas dreams, but he didn’t know which way he should bend his body or position his head on his small mattress. He even used his shoes as a pillow and put a rock beneath them to raise his head a bit higher, but breathing was still difficult. Finally he sat on his bed, pushing hard to breathe. It didn’t change a thing, and the sweat was coming too.

Merci sat beside him, watching his friend closely. ‘Talk when you feel like it, we all have a dark corner in our heart. Even though Congo has made us strangers to ourselves, it is sometimes good to release ourselves by opening our hearts. After all, we are all human,’ he added softly.

He had many concerns about Risto’s health; he had often found him crying for unknown reasons, holding a bracelet to his heart; he feared that things might be going seriously wrong. Now Risto began mumbling strings of unstable stories, names that meant nothing to Merci, but which left Risto devastated, begging forgiveness from a Néné whom he had betrayed. He spoke of an Amani that he would kill to free Néné, he called out to Benny, he argued that he had never wanted to harm anyone, he was forced, he had to follow orders or die. But the name of Néné kept coming back: ‘Néné, I have betrayed you, Néné, I will come to save you, Néné, I am coming to tell you how much I love you,’ he said until Merci hushed him to sleep.

By morning Risto was half-dead. He hardly breathed; sweat had left marks on the white
T
-shirt he wore, his chest made a whistling noise when the forced breath pierced the thick block that had built within. With the help of two men, Merci rushed Risto to the camp clinic that he himself had come to hate when he heard that the attendants, whom the poor people trusted and believed in, had no university degrees. Syringes penetrated Risto’s body, a drip with endless drops brought no change. Merci was very worried that he might lose his only friend, a boy who had become a brother to him.

Risto was transferred to a hospital in Nampula, the third biggest city of Mozambique. It boasted old Portuguese construction, police on each street corner, and well-trained doctors with fairly modern medical tools. But their expertise could not help because they were unsure of what they were treating. The boy went into another world and came back as a drowning swimmer looking in vain for rescue. He kept screaming about Néné and Benny and Kahuzi-Biega. The sweating kept coming, and it was a struggle to keep him breathing. But a hospital was too expensive for the tiny pockets of Merci and Risto. Merci sought help from the United Nations, who insisted that they had invested in a clinic in Marathan; the boy could get free treatment there.

There was never such disappointment as when Merci brought his friend back to die in their hut. Risto’s state seemed to infect many people in the camp; wherever they went and whatever they did, his fate was always the topic. They waited for the breaking news of his death and the end of his curse. Some became energetic; there was a potential business opportunity in the death of a boy who had emerged as the most successful tomato farmer in the camp; the coffee-seller used his string-knotted calculator to count the number of mourners who would be at the funeral, while rival grave-diggers gathered in bunches with their tools to show how ready and serious they were.

Mama
RFI
was no longer an authority on his state; fewer and fewer people asked her about the dying boy, so she decided to take action. She visited the boys’ hut and cursed Merci for having taken Risto to powerless doctors with none of nature’s wisdom, nurses who used Western syrup and aspirin instead of seeking the messages of the gods and ancestors.

She dragged Risto to see the feared witchdoctor Balaba, who was known for watching the world in his magical calabash. Balaba enclosed Risto’s body in his secret chamber, away from everyone’s gaze, then rushed to the marketplace, frightening people, as he was almost naked except for tiger-skin shorts and many necklaces with rare feathers and scales, bones and horns. He shouted warning words to rivals who might try to block his path as he travelled in his magical calabash to far countries, far continents. Even though the sun was still at a bitter strength, a sudden shower followed, and two thunderclaps were heard. In this part of the world, witchcraft spoke through thunder, and now it signified Balaba’s journey to places where only chosen spirits could go, communicating with ancestors who handed him the power of healing. But Balaba was unable to get any answers to explain Risto’s illness, or to drive it away. He too was defeated.

Finally the church tried its hand at healing the boy, believing that his miraculous deliverance would come from God. Everyone was ready with their strongest faith, and some had fasted for several days. First songs started with a few stretching hand movements, then the best vocalists followed one another with their most spirit-compelling songs. There were strings of incantations. Songs shook the roof straw of the mud house, poems were recited, drums and flutes called, the tam-tam answered. The pastor’s voice silenced the sweating dancing women, waves of rhyming words and incantations followed, casting out spells and evil spirits. Then the vivid melodies of flutes and djembe drums and guitars blended with the pastor’s voice. The healing, the returning, the claiming, the awakening of a soul never came; Risto never woke. He was doomed to death.

The news of Risto’s arrival back in Bukavu travelled faster than the plane; people seemed to know the time of the plane’s landing better than the pilot himself. Risto did not feel the warm welcome of his family and friends upon his arrival at Kavumu airport; he was quickly rushed to an ambulance his family had organised and straightaway transported to Panzi hospital.

Here family members waited impatiently for the words of the senior doctor. It wasn’t until three days later that the doctor allowed Risto’s parents to visit him. No talking was allowed; they just took a brief look at where their son lay between strings of drips and ticking machines. His eyes were open, but he was unaware of what was happening. His mother broke the absolute silence by greeting her son; she received no reply.

‘So how do you see the boy?’ asked Papa François, who had been greatly affected by Risto’s sickness. He seemed to be the only one with a bit of strength for questions.

‘He is responding well,’ said the doctor.

This answer attracted the attention of the entire family, and they flocked closer to the doctor.

‘He is in a stable condition,’ he added. Those were his only words; he patted Risto’s mother on the shoulder and walked away down the corridor.

On his fourth day in the hospital, Risto spoke his first words. They troubled his doctor as they had no meaning, and the language was a strange one. It was mere mumbling that led to an injection to make him sleep. Doctors consulted other doctors, and it was declared that Risto’s illness might be cerebral malaria.

In this section of the hospital, no family guard was allowed. While limited family visits were permitted, a doctor supervised the ward constantly while a nurse looked after the patients. Fear rose in the family when after a week, the doctor called Risto’s father to discuss the progress of his son.

‘The boy is doing well,’ he whispered.

‘Okay …’

‘But … I’d like to tell you that it might be more than cerebral malaria.’

Mahuno rested his head in the palm of his right hand.

‘It is not really bad … he responded positively to our medications at the beginning. But he has not stopped mumbling. He wakes from sleeping and speaks endlessly until we inject him with something to calm him.’