by Neil Cross
He heard Sarah’s yelp and her wounded apology, and finally the door closing. When she had safely gone, he fiddled with the Biro and let the awkwardness work its way through his system and drain away.
All it was, Jane had bought a painting without telling him. She’d done worse things; spending all their money on a chimpanzee sanctuary, for example.
But, before getting back to avoiding work, he lifted the painting, still wrapped. Probably, the polite thing would have been to examine it in the artist’s presence. Instead, he’d shown no interest; and it wasn’t Sarah Lime’s fault that he didn’t get to see villainous monkeys mugging a duck.
Deep in the piles of crap on his desk, he found a letter-opener. Its handle was in the shape of a Scots Guard playing the bagpipes. He’d never seen it before, and wondered briefly where the hell it had come from. Then he used it to saw at the cross of hairy string that bound the painting. When the string had fallen away, he slit the taut brown paper.
It smelled good—acrylic and wood sap and something else, perhaps varnish and white spirit and maybe the brown paper itself, baked on the hot back seat of the car that had delivered it.
He hoisted the painting and rested it on a shelf, elbowing some paperwork out of the way.
The painting had been knifed onto the canvas in pale loops and swirling bruises. It showed a naked woman with a storm rising behind her, filling the sky. The woman was tranquil—either imperiously immune to the storm, or perfectly oblivious of it and about to be swept into its vortex like an autumn leaf.
The painting seemed at once deeply English and very old; as if it had been copied from something disinterred from the soil, or discovered painted deep on the wall of limestone caves.
Taking it down from the shelf and turning it to lean it, face-forward against the wall (where it would remain until Jane returned and decided what to do with it), he noticed the handwritten invoice taped to the rough backside of it, and realized why Sarah had hung around, reluctant to leave but with nothing to say.
He’d acted like a banana republic customs officer as she squirmed and waited and finally gave up and gathered her bag and left, bruising her leg on the way out. She’d been waiting for him to pay for the painting.
FROM JANE’S NOTEBOOKS
The city of Goma stands on the banks of Lake Kivu, eastern Zaire. Its northern sky is dominated by Mount Nyiragongo, a living volcano. Inside its massive crater seethes a lake of molten rock. The mountain glows in the dark like a night-light.
The buildings are single-story, cement blocks. The streets are acned with holes and gorged with cars, motorbikes, people, animals, carts, ancient vans, patched-up Volkswagen buses. Young moneychangers wander from car to car with thick wads of cash clasped in their fists. Stands sell hot, seasoned fried dough. Women carry goods for sale under their arms, on their heads, in push-carts. There are barefoot soldiers. And there is a constant snarl of NGO vehicles: UNICEF, UNHCR, CARE, CONCERN.
Goma used to be a tourist town. It’s got an airport, it’s close to Virunga National Park. It was celebrated for its nightlife. If it’s a tourist town now, it’s in a different way: since 1994, more than two hundred Non-Governmental Organizations have come here to compete for more than a billion dollars of relief-related contracts. The gang’s all here: the United Nations, naturally. And the French, the Dutch, the Swedes, the Germans, the Americans, the Irish, the British, the Canadians, the Australians: World Vision, Care, the Samaritans, Oxfam, Southern Baptist Relief, Médecins Sans Frontières.
Not unlike soft drinks companies, the competing aid groups trumpet their names with logos stamped on vehicles, T-shirts, baseball caps.
They’re here because, in 1994, a flood of refugees gushed through this dry city. They were taking flight from Rwanda but, despite what we heard in the Western media, they weren’t fleeing the genocide; they were Hutus. Among the many innocent Hutus were thousands of interahamwe: Those Who Stand Together. The génocidaires.
After slaughtering and inciting the slaughter of perhaps a million people, the interahamwe had been driven out of Rwanda by a Tutsi army a quarter its size. The humiliated leaders of the interahamwe then terrified Rwanda’s entire civilian Hutu population into joining them in exodus. The Tutsi cockroaches had escaped extermination, and now they were coming to wreak genocidal revenge.
Hundreds of thousands of homeless Hutus fanned out along Nyiragongo’s volcanic black skirts. They brought no food, no livestock, no carts, no goods. They built hovels that, shoulder to shoulder, stretched to the far horizon. There was typhoid, dysentery, malaria; of course, there was AIDS.
The camp closest to Goma is called Mugunga. It goes on forever, sprawling under the live, night-glowing volcano. You couldn’t make that up. Two hundred thousand people sleep on rock lava and black volcanic soil. Main streets have risen; there are markets, bars, barber shops and discos. You can buy a hand grenade for three American dollars. An R4 rifle will set you back sixty. The ground is so hard, you can’t dig a grave into it.
Our route took us past the camp, and as we drew near, the dense roadside crowds thickened and coagulated. All around, blue plastic sheeting was draped over temporary shelters, always a sign of UNHCR presence.
Tens of thousands were gathered round the huts; standing, sitting, trading, eating, talking. The sheer crush of dispossessed, bored, watchful humanity was frightening. We’d hidden the camera and sound equipment. Not all Hutus appreciate the Western media.
Only when the surly and vigilant multitude began to thin out did the atmosphere in the car loosen up. And after a few miles, approaching the Hotel Karibu, the masses were thinner still—and we actually began to relax—a little.
The Karibu is a tourist resort whose tourists are gone and whose swimming pool is empty, ringed with green moss. The dim Reception is hung with dried-out animal skins, local art, fading travel posters.
We checked in. I dumped my bags in my room, went back to Reception, called home. There’s no landline, just a fervently guarded cell-phone. The desk clerk claimed to be busy, then he informed me the lines were tied up, then he instructed me that the phone was to be used for incoming calls only.
I stood there until he gave up. He passed me the cell-phone—une dollar per minute, madame—and I got through to home. But the line was bad and I didn’t know what to say. Nor did Patrick, and neither did the kids. It was more like using a ouija board than making a phone call, and when I hung up I felt nauseated and empty, stagnant as the swimming pool outside.
Then Richard appeared and I enjoyed watching him go through the same protracted negotiations, with less success. Richard doesn’t have my patience. Richard doesn’t know about waiting. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t.
Later, in the deserted bar, we met Claude.
He used to be a ranger at Virunga, the vast national park that runs along the Ugandan and Rwandan borders. Virunga is home to more than half the mountain gorillas left on earth; about 350 of them.
As a ranger, Claude’s salary was less than 50 cents a month; even so, he often didn’t receive it. International agencies supplied him with equipment, uniforms and a $20 monthly ‘bonus’—but that money, along with most of the funds marked for conservation projects, was diverted into the hands of venal officials.
And now, naturally, bloodshed has come to Virunga. In the last few months, four mountain gorillas have been killed. Murdered, said Claude; the first such incidents in more than a decade. Probably, they were shot and eaten by famished Hutus using interahamwe weapons.
All this bedlam makes it impossible to monitor the remaining gorillas. A few rangers tried, because these are dedicated men. They disappeared.
Late in July 1996, three local kids paid a visit to Monkeyland. They were Robbie Swindon, James Gaddis and Michael Redman—Stu Redman’s son.
It was the holidays, they were bored and, because Robbie’s mum worked in Monkeyland as a cleaner, the
y got in cheap.
They were sixteen, and the summer looked good on them. Their clothes were sun-faded and cool: their washed-out combat shorts, their Pearl Jam, Blur and Oasis T-shirts. The hair in their eyes, bleached by the sun.
First thing, they went to the gift shop and mucked around, shouting, throwing cuddly toys to one another. The shop assistant looked up from the crossword. She was Arielle Thompson’s mum; she used to work in the bakery in Innsmouth, she knew their names. And by name, she told them to sod off before she called Red’s dad. So they filed through the door and legged it to the ice-cream van. They bought 99s with strawberry sauce and began to explore.
They went to the A Compound, where chimps lazed on tyre swings and sucked at sawdusty oranges, looking really fucking bored. Now and again the animals swivelled their nutty-brown eyes in the boys’ direction, then returned to picking nits from each other.
The boys passed the colobus monkeys, the spider monkey island, and arrived at the Bachelor Group. By the handrail, a laminated note informed visitors that the boss chimp had just died, and warned them that the group was undergoing a transition period.
And there was definitely something going on down there. Little groups, little gangs, huddled in different corners. Other chimps were knuckle-walking, pacing. They looked tense and wary.
‘Cool,’ said Robbie, making it a three-syllable word.
Red locked on to the biggest of the chimps. It was an ugly bastard. Its head was almost bald and its ears were big and raw-looking; a bite-sized chunk had been taken from one of them. It was panting and muttering like a street-corner nutcase.
As Red watched, it burst into attack—driving away a second, smaller chimp. The fight seemed to pass an electric current through the compound; chimps screeched and leaped, and their hair was standing rigidly on end.
When the fight ended, the chimps split into two groups. Most of them strolled away and began to pick at each other’s fur. But a dozen thunderous chimp brows were turned upwards, at the human audience drawn to this noisy compound like wasps to a bin.
Those surly frowns should have been comical, but they weren’t—and Red was glad when the moment was broken by some bored-looking head-turning, some grooming, some eating.
But then the ugly chimp stepped forward again; the one with the fucked-up ear. It was huffing and puffing and glaring at them, at the ring of high faces, circling it like a jury.
It waa-barked, showing teeth, and thrashed the ground with a stick, then clambered up the jungle gym and tried to rip it apart. It displayed for a minute, then snuffled and slapped at the ground and, in disgust, turned its back.
Nobody moved. Nobody said much: they were waiting. There was tension in the chimp’s arms, and in the hunching of its shoulders, and in its lunatic mutterings.
Softly barking, it scooped a handful of matter from the ground. Then it turned and, shrieking, threw it—a turd missile.
It broke up in the air like a meteor, and scattered over the quickly atomizing crowd; ducking their heads, as if to avoid a sudden shower of rain. Some of the shit got in Robbie’s hair. A chunk of it splatted on Red’s cheek.
Below, the chimp was pant-hooting. It swatted the ground with the stick, and this time more of the chimps joined in; a shrieking, carnival frenzy. The spectators, imagining a barrage of pulpy missiles—shit and fruit and clods of mud—were mostly jogging away now, almost running—and none of them were smiling. A few kids, toddlers, were crying.
But Red wasn’t running. He alone hung back, breathing through his mouth. Shit was smeared on his face, round his eyes and mouth. Particles of shit had dropped down the neck of his T-shirt; more shit had fallen in a clump between his feet.
Red stooped to gather up the shit. Straightening, he re-squashed it into a ball—smaller, but more compacted, like Plasticine.
Now he saw that zoo keepers were rushing in. Khaki uniforms, big boots. He measured their approach, then drew back his arm like a cricketer and bowled the squashed-up ball of monkey shit, overarm.
Before running away, he hesitated, to see if the missile had struck home. The throw was pretty good; Red was a talented athlete. But the clod of shit broke up. All it did was increase the frenzy; the tumult of waa-barking, the pant-hooting, the berserk physical display—the knuckle-leaping, the ground-beating.
The keepers were getting closer. One of them, not much older than Red, had broken away from the pack and into a full sprint. The other keepers were grabbing at him, trying to stop him. But they were older and slower, nowhere near quick enough.
They called the kid’s name. But the kid wasn’t listening. He ran at Red.
The kid was really fast.
Patrick hurried to the Bachelor Compound. He found a junior keeper trying to corral the loitering, craning visitors. The ground was littered with orange quarters, apple cores, splatterings of faecal matter.
Patrick’s heart doubled in weight; his pace halved.
On a patch of grass opposite the Bachelor Compound, a boy sat with his back to a hazel tree. His head was tilted and he was pressing something to his nose. There was blood on his T-shirt and jeans. Patrick recognized him as Stu Redman’s son. He was flanked by two of his friends. They were shuffling their feet, kicking at the grass, hands deep in their pockets.
On the opposite side of the grass patch, Harriet was having words with Charlie. Charlie was cupping his right hand in his left, massaging it. It was a gesture Patrick recognized at once as the way you rubbed your hand after getting off a really good punch. Everyone was surprised by how much it hurt; that punching someone in the head felt like punching a brick wall.
Patrick approached them. ‘So what’s going on?’
Harriet jerked her thumb over her shoulder, at the Bachelor Group.
She said, ‘Incident,’ and Patrick groaned, because ‘incident’ meant ‘report’, which meant inspectors, officials, DEFRA, possibly even newspapers. ‘Incident’ meant a pain in the ass, maybe for weeks.
‘What kind of incident?’
‘Donnie threw shit into the crowd.’
‘Oh, Christ. Did it—?’
‘Yep.’
Patrick’s shoulders drooped.
‘It gets better. The kid threw it back.’
‘The kid threw shit at the chimp?’
‘Yep. And of course, Charlie sees what’s happening. So he runs up and punches him.’
Patrick hated Monkeyland. He rubbed his face vigorously, as if washing it.
Then he said, ‘Wait.’
He made himself amble over to the local kids. He squatted at Michael Redman’s side.
‘How is it?’
Michael tried to nod, but his head was still tilted back.
‘All right.’
‘I’m going to have to call your dad. You know that.’
Michael Redman closed his eyes in acknowledgment. The other two hunched their shoulders, groaned, dug at the soil with their toes.
‘No choice,’ said Patrick. He resisted the urge to look over his shoulder, at his boy.
He said, ‘So tell you what. You boys wander over to my office. Michael, you be careful of that nose. Keep the dressing pressed tight for another ten minutes. We’ll call your dad, and while you’re waiting, we’ll get you a Coke or something. A bag of chips. How’s that?’
He had Harriet lead them away. He waited until they were gone, then went to find Charlie. Someone had taken him to the staff room. He was sitting alone in there, cupping his hand.
Patrick said, ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
Charlie stopped massaging the hand.
‘You twat,’ said Patrick. ‘You dickhead. He’s a local. He’s the local copper’s son. Jesus, Charlie.’
Charlie said, ‘I was thinking of Rue.’
And Patrick’s anger was gone. He sat
down, next to Charlie. He examined his hand, front and back, then went to get the green First Aid box.
Stu Redman arrived in uniform. Entering the office, he lowered his head and removed his hat.
At first, he ignored the teenagers. They were sitting in a line against the far wall—Charlie and Red gloomy in the middle. Red’s nostrils were clogged with blood: his eye was good and swollen. Charlie had his hand in a white dressing.
Stu gave Patrick a private, jaded look. Rolled his eyes. Arms crossed, Patrick shrugged a shoulder.
Stu sat, facing the boys. He spread his legs wide and passed his hat through his hands. His bored and pugnacious gaze lingered on Red, then Charlie.
Robbie couldn’t stand it.
‘That monkey threw shit. That’s illegal.’
Stu said, ‘It would be illegal if you threw shit, Robbie. But the chimp can’t have broken the law, because it’s a monkey. All right? Not actually a bloke in a suit.’
Robbie flushed and muttered something at his knees.
‘What is against the law,’ said Stu, ‘is for Michael to assault an animal. Even with its own turds, as it happens.’
He saw their doleful surrender, the downcast eyes, the tugging at fingers.
‘I’ve spoken to Patrick. He and Charlie are going to sort this out between them. The rest of you, I’m going to take you home. And I’m warning you: I don’t want to hear another word about this. Not a single effing word. All right?’
Stu held their gaze. Then he stood and put on his hat.
He said, ‘Wait outside,’ and Red, Robbie and James shuffled out of the office in a shackled-convict tread.
Stu and Patrick shook hands.
Patrick said, ‘Appreciate it.’
‘Boys, innit. Idiots. All of them.’
He put his hat on. Straightening it, he faced Charlie.
He said, ‘And you, Henry Cooper—you be careful with those fists. Because next time, your old man might not be around to bail you out—and next time I’ll have you. All right?’
And then the office was empty, but for Charlie and Patrick.