There were now thirty teams, and three leagues, serving the 1000 or so boys and girls who had signed up. Its assets were modest: a dozen footballs, a handful of referees’ whistles, and – for use in the league finals only – a goal net and two sets of kit, stored for safety in the clinic run by Charity Mupanga’s cousin, Mercy.
When membership of the league was first proposed at a gang meeting, it was a matter that threatened to divide the boys. None of them had any relish for the point-scoring tasks that membership required – such as clearing the rubbish, or digging out sections of the stream that served as a sewer. No-one was more sceptical than Ntoto himself, but nevertheless he decided that the matter would have to be settled by discussion.
A hundred yards or so from the water pipe in which Ntoto, Rutere, and many of the boys had set up home was what, at first sight, looked like a mound of earth, some thirty metres in diameter. It was not so much earth, as layers of rubbish that had settled over the years. In the middle were the rusting hulks of an old bus, its rusted frame like the skeleton of a beached whale. Two cars, stripped of their parts, were more recent adornments, and one of them could not have been there more than two or three years. The bus now served as a rudimentary clubhouse, while the cars helped conceal a small lined pit, dug by the boys, in which they kept their only football, a collection of football boots, not all of them matching pairs, a large plastic bottle which was filled with water for the half-time drinks, a radio-cassette player, and a handful of tapes.
On the day membership of the league had been discussed it had been too hot to sit inside the bus, but the speakers climbed onto its top and from this makeshift podium made their case for or against joining. Initially the majority of the Mboya Boys had held out against applying for membership, but as time wore on, it became clear that the mood was changing. The first season of the scheme, when the boys had looked on enviously from the sidelines, had proved a great success; and as more leagues were formed, and the grand football final approached, the lure of membership overcame any dislike for community chores.
Ten so-called “community points” were required for full membership, and the Mboya Boys soon qualified, earning six in one weekend when they cleared 100 metres of pathway along the side of the evil-smelling black rivulet that ran through Kireba.
It had been during that initial debate on the merits of membership that Cyrus Rutere first came to Ntoto’s attention. The boys had been divided, and Ntoto himself was uncertain. But when Rutere put forward a well reasoned case for joining, he tipped the balance. Ntoto did not hesitate, took his advice, and joined up. From then on, the two boys forged a friendship, and Rutere, shrewd, cautious and pragmatic, though inclined to the superstitious, became the equivalent of consigliere to Ntoto’s don.
There was one other item on that day’s agenda: how to deal with the newcomer to Kireba, Edward Furniver. The Mboya Boys had nearly split over the issue, almost equally divided between those who wanted to steal the computer the white man foolishly kept in his office, and those who advocated knocking him on the head and snatching his briefcase. Titus Ntoto thought both ideas had merit, but feelings were running so deep among the Mboya Boys that unless he found a third way, a damaging division seemed inevitable.
It was then that Rutere had made the suggestion that may well have saved Furniver’s bacon.
“It is my turn to speak,” said Rutere.
“Stand up, stand up,” cried one boy in the audience, a cruel jibe at Rutere’s modest height.
“True, I am small, and nothing can change this; you are tall,” replied Rutere with dignity. “Nothing can change that. But I am clever, and nothing can change this . . .” He paused. “And you are stupid . . .”
As repartee went it was not sharp, but his infuriated tormentor had to be restrained from punching Rutere.
“Let Rutere speak,” said Titus quietly. The response was immediate, prompting Rutere to wonder whether the stories he had heard about Ntoto were true.
Rutere seized the opportunity.
“We want to play football, yes? If you want to play football you must have a team.”
The boys nodded their agreement.
“And if you play proper football, in a team, you must play other teams. But only Kireba will play Kireba boys, for other places are afraid of us. So we must play in this Kireba league. But if we play proper football, in a proper league, we need uniforms. And we have no money for uniforms, or for boots.”
Rutere warmed to his theme. “Remember when we last played against ourselves?”
There was a rumble of acknowledgement. Who could forget the fight that had broken out during the game between two pickup sides, when the ref had given a penalty? Who in their heart of hearts could blame him, unable to distinguish a member of one team from the other, dressed as they were in the same tattered rags?
“What is the answer?” Rutere had asked rhetorically.
“We must ask this white man, Furniver, to help us. He must give us a loan, and we can buy twelve white shorts and twelve red T-shirts for the team. And we will pay back with community work.”
His argument won the day. Furniver had responded positively, and repayment terms were generous even by the bank’s standards, for Furniver had found a way to reduce the cost of the loan by writing off a third of it as “Publicity and Public Relations”.
When the Mboya Boys team next took the field in their new kit, across the front of each T-shirt were the initials KPCB, and on the back was the slogan “Save with the People”.
Rutere not only won the day. He won over his tall tormentor, who just happened to be the striker for the Mboya Boys football team that was to win the league cup that season.
The car carrying Hardwicke and Fingers slowed down.
“Traffic lights on the blink again,” said Reuttman, the Bank’s resident representative. “Probably another power cut. Sooner they sign the loan agreement for the new power plant, the better.”
Within a few yards of the lights, the car had crawled to a halt.
If Fingers thought he could go back to sleep, the briefing completed, he was mistaken. Hardwicke looked up from the file on the meeting to come, and nudged him in the ribs.
“I see that Nduka’s overspending on defence again. Time to clamp down,” said Hardwicke.
Fingers decided not to respond immediately. Instead he wriggled the little finger of his right hand in his right ear, frowning slightly as he did so. The intrusion made an almost imperceptible moist noise, concluding with a soft plop as he withdrew the digit.
Hardwicke tried to ignore the provocation.
“What can we call the latest loan?” he asked. “I gather that the president insists on going through with that arms order. Says it’s to put down the rebels. If we give him the benefit of the doubt we need to call it something respectable.”
Fingers wondered whether to tell his boss that the defence order included helicopters with night sights, something the country’s air force chief had lusted after ever since seeing the equipment on display at Farnborough air show. This was not the time to upset Hardwicke, he decided. He thought for a few seconds.
“Let’s call it ‘pre-humanitarian assistance’.”
The Bank president nodded. Fingers really did have a way with words.
“Now leave your ears alone. Or do it in private. Bloody disgusting, the noise it makes . . .”
Fingers ignored him, and his digit proceeded to explore the recesses of his right ear, while working with his other hand on a news release for the press.
“Have you got that statement ready?” Hardwicke asked.
“Five minutes, Hardwick. Five minutes.”
Balance. As always it was a matter of balance. If Hardwicke were seen to be too tough, he would be accused of being insensitive to the country’s plight; if he failed to condemn the government for its failure to introduce economic reforms, he would be accused of going soft.
By the standards of Fingers’ profession, it was a reasonable tas
k.
Fingers owed his nickname to his speed and dexterity on the keyboard of his Olivetti Lettera 32 portable typewriter, which he had been forced to leave behind in favour of the ubiquitous laptop computer. But his fame was built on more than digital dexterity: he was a master of the ambiguous word or phrase, a wizard of the weasel-word vocabulary of development. He had achieved renown within Bank circles when, during an earlier visit, he had coped with the sensitivities of Kuwisha officials while overseeing a hard-hitting economic report on the country.
The title - Kuwisha: Seizing the Moment, Realising the Opportunity – gave no hint of the bleak contents.
The task that now faced Fingers was equally tricky. Kuwisha remained a loyal ally of Washington, and at the core of Western policy in the region. The country had had military agreements with the US and Britain since independence, provided a reliable base for international aid operations, and several United Nations agencies had their headquarters in the capital. In short, Kuwisha, for all its faults, was useful to the west in general, and to Washington and London in particular. It was most definitely not a country the World Bank wanted to offend, an island of stability in a troubled part of the continent.
The unavoidable main issue to be addressed was corruption. Kuwisha had become – despite its stability – synonymous with sleaze. But this time the Bank was confident that it had leverage. Hardwicke was certain that he – or rather his staff – had finally caught the current administration with its hands in the till.
The most brazen of the various scams involved the President himself. It was not merely the fact that he had acquired a presidential jet using state funds; he had paid at least $10m over the going rate, most of which, it seemed, had ended up in his own pocket, or in the coffers of companies controlled by his family. The president had also connived in, or was the main beneficiary of, a series of deals in which the owners had been strong-armed into selling their businesses, ranging from oil distribution to vehicle franchises.
The latest example of the president’s seemingly insatiable hunger for money was a series of land sales on the country’s coast. The ploy was simple. Nduka had first signed an agreement giving a foreign-owned company the right to establish a prawn breeding and processing plant on a stretch of coastline north of the coastal resort of Walindi. But no sooner had this been done, than a series of counter-claims emerged from the land registry office. Had the claims been filed by ordinary, God-fearing citizens, determined to win compensation for loss of property that had been in the family for generations, sympathy would have been abundant. But a cursory investigation revealed that the claimants were, with barely an exception, top officials of the ruling party, officers in Kuwisha’s armed forces, and members of President Nduka’s family, including his son Albert.
If all this was not enough, the Brits were hinting that they had Nduka on the ropes over some maize deal, which they hoped would be sorted out during Hardwicke’s visit.
Just before Hardwicke was about to announce that the five minutes were up, Fingers was ready.
“At a time when Kuwisha is fighting against the terrible impact of the floods that have left tens of thousands of people without homes or food, the World Bank is at your side . . .
“But there is a high price to pay at times like this for weak institutions and inadequate policies . . .
“ Reform is vital – however hard it seems . . .”
“Our message is strong and unequivocal,” the statement concluded.
“If Kuwisha and its leaders set their development agenda, and take the lead in implementing it, the World Bank will be a full partner in their efforts.”
For anyone familiar with the code word vocabulary of the Bank, the message was clear. No government could emerge unscathed from the climatic battering that Kuwisha had experienced, but the country was also the victim of mismanagement.
“If we work together, as partners, Kuwisha can at last realise its enormous potential.”
He was particularly pleased with the way in which he had managed to slip in the word “potential”. It was short of the kick in the pants that Kuwisha’s critics wanted, but certainly not the endorsement sought by President Nduka.
14
“Foolish is the mujiba (herd boy) who eats the marula berries”
For David Podmore the visit by Hardwick Hardwicke could not have been better timed. Over the past few weeks the First Secretary at the British High Commission had been trying to get hold of Mayor Guchu to pass on a discreet, unofficial and heartfelt message of concern about maize shipments, but with no success.
The mayor had made himself unavailable for good reason. He suspected, correctly, that the High Commission was attempting to interfere in what he considered was a private business matter. Some large orders for maize, Kuwisha’s staple food, had been placed by a commodity company with British links, and in which the Mayor had a substantial financial stake.
There was nothing necessarily wrong with this.
Kuwisha’s “food deficit” had always been filled by maize imported on commercial terms. But Podmore had not been able to trace the shipments after they reached Kuwisha’s main port. According to his sources at the docks, the maize had definitely been off-loaded. And a few days later it reached depots at various points around the country. But in the process, no customs duty appeared to have been paid. Awkward questions were now being raised, and the visiting World Bank team was expected to put the matter on their agenda when they saw President Nduka.
Podmore had raised the problem at the weekly meeting of senior staff under the chairmanship of the High Commissioner.
The high commissioner, a man on his last posting and whose political instincts were sharpened by his determination that he would retire with a knighthood, listened closely as the first secretary set out his concerns.
“If this is the case,” concluded Podmore, “and I stress if, there are grounds for bringing our concerns to the attention of the president. Through Guchu. Informally of course.”
“How much did you say was the difference?” the high commissioner asked, somewhat nervously, referring to the amount that would be saved by not paying customs duty.
“At least two, maybe three, million dollars,” said Podmore.
The high commissioner chewed his pencil. The amount was not, in the scale of these matters, particularly big. Under what passed for normal circumstances, it would probably not have attracted comment. It was the principle that mattered, and some principles mattered far more than others. Three million dollars just happened to be the amount that Britain’s development ministry was donating towards the cost of the food Kuwisha would have to import.
To Podmore’s delight, the high commissioner had given the go-ahead for him to make informal contact with Guchu. Since that meeting at the High Commission, the world price of maize had gone up significantly, and Podmore had calculated that the profit on the deal could be as much as $4-5m. Deduct the contributions to the ruling party election funds and payoffs along the line, those responsible would have a net profit, he reckoned, of around a million dollars.
The message Podmore needed to convey to Guchu was delicate but simple: it would be much appreciated if the margin on the deal could be reduced from the outrageous to the acceptable. The mayor’s response would no doubt be predictable, though he would never say so in as many words. An election was weeks away: where else did Mr Podmore think the ruling party’s campaign funds would come from?
Approaching Guchu was easier said than done.
How, the diplomat wondered, could he deliver a stern but tactful message that in an informal way conveyed the concern of Her Majesty’s Government about the maize deal from which Guchu was making an unacceptably high profit? It had to be a contrived meeting, discreet yet in a public place. Above all, it had to be deniable, for if the message, or warning, call it what you will, went unheeded or was bluntly rejected, HMG needed to have the option of claiming that it had all been a dreadful misunderstanding.
T
he excitement was too much for him, and he began pacing the room. His posterior seemed to have a life of its own, busy, energetic, distracted. Had it been a dog’s tail, it would have been constantly wagging.
Podmore cursed the high commission’s air-conditioning system that made it impossible to open his office window, and blow the smoke from an illegal cigarette into the outside air. He flicked through the local papers, with their reports about the visit by Hardwicke to Kireba.
Suddenly the solution to the Guchu problem struck him.
“Got it!”
Podmore gave an involuntary shudder of satisfaction, in which his hindquarters quivered, rather like those of a neutered cat attempting to spray on the furniture.
“Got it!”
He did another dance around his desk. Panting after his exertion, Podmore pulled in his developing paunch, took a peek into the mirror above his desk, rearranged his thinning fair hair to cover his bald patch, and pulled his shoulders back.
By and large, David Podmore was pleased with what he saw.
Pearson made the short journey to Borrowdale, one of the capital’s green and leafy suburbs where together with her dog Shango, Lucy Gomball lived. Its quaint English name had survived post-independence attempts to change it to something more in keeping with Africa, as indeed had the suburb itself. It had become a sanctuary both for the settlers who had decided to call themselves white Kuwisha, and for upper class, indigenous Kuwisha who had, unconsciously, become black Brits.
The dog was a Rhodesian ridgeback, but he was not pure bred. At some stage in his canine ancestry, a jackal or a street mongrel had contributed his or her genes to the murky pool that made up the dog. According to the local vet, this accounted for the khaki-coloured animal’s low-slung hindquarters, his exceptionally powerful jaws, and above all, his uncertain temper.
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