by M L Rudolph
The jeep continued its slide down the slope into the shallows where the churning current slowly sucked it away from the bank. The muddy water swarmed the broken vehicle, turning it leisurely around until the water poured through its windows and pulled it below the river’s savage surface.
Chapter 26
The downpour intensified and the mudflow thickened while the three men struggled for traction up the collapsing slope. Jean-Louis led the way on all fours, leaning in and grabbing at exposed roots. Matt brought up the rear, literally, putting his shoulder to Kolarik’s butt at every slippery step, until at near exhaustion the trio collapsed on the road, gasping for breath under the pelting rain.
The Mercedes immediately pulled beside them; Jacques and Sally rushed out to help the injured man into the backseat. Sally grabbed bottled water and a cloth from the trunk; she poured the water over the man’s muddy gash and handed him the cloth.
“Pete Kolarik,” he said, and extended his hand to Matt. “Probably owe you guys my fucking life.”
The three men smeared everything they touched and transformed the back seat into a mud bath. Kolarik held the cloth to his calf, his pant leg up to the knee, a mixture of blood and mud oozing down his ankle.
“Fucking French,” he said, then caught himself. “None of you are French, I hope.”
Matt shook his head. No one else responded.
“You, man,” he said to Matt. “You gave me one big kick in the ass back there. I’d be at the bottom of that river if it wasn’t for you.” He laughed through gritted teeth. “And you, man,” he slopped Jean-Louis on the knee. “Thanks for breaking my fall, bud. You okay? No broken bones?”
Jean-Louis, muddied to the gills and jammed between the two Americans, shook his dripping head. “I am fine.”
“I’ve learned one thing out of this,” Kolarik continued. “Never buy a used car from a fucking Frenchie. Bastard gave me a good price on that Rover ’cause it was in an accident and the passenger door won’t open. So what do I do, I tip the fucking thing over on to the good door.” He pulled a piece of glass out of his mud-flecked beard and looked for a place to flick it, finally dropping it on the carpet, and kept checking his beard for more.
Amped up from the rescue, Kolarik kept up a steady patter while Jacques drove through the continued downpour. Exhausted from the acute exertion, Matt sat back and let his countryman introduce himself with an anecdote for everyone: he toured Abidjan where he knew the hotels and restaurants as well as Jean-Louis; he passed through Yamoussoukro where he fed live chickens to the crocodiles and knew the local roads as well as Jacques; he spent the past week kicking around Bamako where he knew the local nightclubs better than Sally.
“So where you from?” he said when he got to Matt.
“Indiana.”
“Whereabouts? I went to Ohio State. Had a couple pals who were Hoosiers.”
“Fort Wayne.”
“Cool. My buddies were from Bloomington, South Bend.”
Jean-Louis leaned back between the Americans to let them speak.
“What do you do?”
“Math teacher. Football coach. High School. You?”
“Cool. I did PoliSci. Was gonna study law, get into government, but I lost interest in all that bullshit. Fucking politics stuck in my craw, know what I mean. Who needs it?” Kolarik squeezed his calf, grimacing, pushing at Sally’s seat for space.
“How’s that feel?” Matt said.
“Mauled. Like it looks.”
“Are your shots current?”
“Yeah, well, if I had my papers I could probably look it up for you. But seeing as they’re in the back of the fucking Rover.”
“So now two Americans without passports,” Jean-Louis said.
“Two?” Kolarik leaned across Jean-Louis to look at Matt.
“Stolen,” Matt explained, opting for the short version.
“Too fucking much.” But Kolarik drew him out, getting Matt to describe his mugging in Abidjan from the spiked Perrier to the military jeeps hurtling toward the Malian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
While the Americans spoke, Jacques cruised through the increasingly barren country until he came to a crossroads with another asphalt artery.
Long-haul trucks parked near market stands covered up for the rain. On one corner a cluster of rectangular block buildings bordered a barren field. As if on a schedule, the rain stopped as soon as Jacques parked.
“Wait with him,” Jean-Louis said, and climbed over Matt to get out of the backseat. He led Jacques and Sally across the soggy field. Three boney dogs ran up to trail them to the main building, a simple block structure with a wooden door and windows facing the road.
“This place is called Bla. Cool name, huh?” Kolarik said, and pushed his door open to let fresh air into the stuffy mud-splattered interior. “Your friends know the family that lives here. They want to wash up before the ride into Ouaga.”
“You speak French?” Matt said, surprised at the American he’d written off as loud and dull-witted.
“I do, but I don’t usually let on. People tend to translate strategically, if you know what I mean. Never know what you’ll learn by keeping quiet.”
Matt lost a chuckle to Kolarik who he didn’t consider the quiet type. “Isn’t that a little awkward when they find out you speak it?”
“Depends. I never say I don’t speak it. Just use it how it makes most sense.”
When he returned, Jean-Louis helped Kolarik to his feet. “Come inside. We’re lucky. They have a doctor in town.”
Chapter 27
The buildings at the Bla crossroads were constructed to create a small courtyard in front next to the road and one in the rear sheltered by a crooked sun-baked wooden fence. In one corner of the rear square a hand action water pump rose from a concrete pad; a ditch ran away from the buildings. Jean-Louis and Matt helped Kolarik hobble to the pad where someone had placed a plastic folding chair with a ragged and faded flowery towel next to a small bar of soap.
“You go first,” Jean-Louis said. The two men helped Kolarik peel off his sodden clothes. Under his shirt, Kolarik unbuckled a short nylon vest with a horizontal zipper at the sternum.
“I keep this with me,” he stated. “Money vest.” He laid it over the back of the chair then dropped his clothes in a heap.
Jean-Louis walked Kolarik’s clothes across the courtyard, tossed them into a v-shaped trough, and turned on an iron spigot. He rinsed the pants, the shirt, the underwear, the socks, then spread them across some empty clay pots stacked along one wall. He left them and went inside the main building.
Kolarik held his wound under the water while Matt worked the pump. “Fucking numbing, man. Like showering with your garden hose.”
“We’re not supposed to drink this stuff,” Matt said, “so why do you think it’s okay to run it into an open wound?”
“Hah! You might have shared that thought before you started pumping that shit into my system.”
“You’re probably already so soaked in microbes it won’t matter.”
“I’ve already wrecked a car and almost drowned.” Kolarik worked the soap around the edges of his torn flesh. “What else can possibly go wrong, right?”
“You know we’re running from a petty criminal?”
“Nothing surprises me.”
Matt stopped pumping for a moment and let the water flow. “A week ago I never even knew these places existed. And now look at me? Up to my goddam eyeballs in river mud.”
Kolarik laughed at the sight of Matt and stretched his soapy leg into the trickling water. “You gonna work that thing or just think about it?”
“I came here for my son. What about you?”
Kolarik stopped washing and rested his wounded leg on the slab. He took a big breath and gave Matt a resigned smile. “You kicked my sorry ass outa that jeep, so I guess you deserve an honest answer.
“I was supposed to go to law school so I could join my Dad’s firm. It was decision time. But I just fucki
ng couldn’t do it, man. I tried, like I mean, I really tried. Every summer, I went through the motions. But it just wasn’t for me.”
“What does that mean? Wasn’t for you?”
“It’s like this moment had to come.” Kolarik looked up at the receding clouds. “Like I had to have this accident, get rescued by you, so you could ask me the question I came here to avoid.”
“So don’t answer it.”
Kolarik laughed and shook his head. “An unpleasant truth.”
Matt dropped the handle and the flow reduced to a trickle.
“I don’t want to become my Dad. That’s what it is. He’s an okay guy and all. I just don’t want to be him when I grow up, if you know what I mean. So I came here and guess what? My fucking textbook French got pretty good, and I discovered there might be other things I can do with my life.”
“Like what?” But Matt didn’t get his answer. Jean-Louis returned with a pair of tunics.
“You get to be one of us,” Jean-Louis said to Kolarik and handed him a simple burnt-orange short-sleeved tunic. “And you, monsieur.” He handed a similar garment to Matt. “Might be short but there is not much choice.” Then he dropped two pairs of sandals on the ground next to the concrete slab and helped Kolarik stand. “The doctor has arrived. Let’s get you in.” He helped Kolarik limp into the main house.
Left alone, Matt peeled off his clothes and worked the pump to scrub at the mud caking his body. Kolarik destroyed the lone towel so Matt had to don his tunic without drying, plus the sandals didn’t fit. His heels scuffed the wet ground as he carried his clothes to the trough.
Before he turned on the spigot, he checked his vest pockets and removed his passport pouch. He’d forgotten about it during the mad rush to Kolarik’s aid.
Melanie’s envelope was soaked through. He shook it out. Blew on it. Peeled the envelope open. The three handwritten pages were stuck together. He carefully separated them and laid each sheet on the ground to dry next to the photos of Karl, which were also soaked but not destroyed. Then he extracted the soggy CFA notes from his other pockets and arranged them beside the photos.
He proceeded to rinse his clothes in the trough, then spread them next to Kolarik’s under the patchy afternoon sun.
When he finished, he checked the pages of the letter; Melanie had only written on one side and he was happy to see that apart from a little blurring all was legible.
His eyes fell on the first lines of text:
April 17, 1979
My very dear Karl,
I whispered my first words to you in a hospital room a lot like this one. I don’t suppose you remember. We hadn’t even named you yet….
No. He wouldn’t read further. This was Karl’s letter; when he handed it to him he didn’t want to know its contents. That would feel wrong, as if he’d taken ownership of the letter prior to handing it over. He refolded it, reassembled the photos and his money, and slid everything into the sewn-on pocket of his tunic.
Feeling a little breezy in the loose garb, Matt entered the main building to join the others. There Kolarik sat on a low sofa. A slender young man in a neat collared shirt tucked into his trousers knelt to clean the American’s wound with alcohol.
Jean-Louis, whose kaftan had continued drying and fading to a sort of brownish indigo, was speaking with a dignified middle-aged man with trim gray beard and a proprietorial bearing.
“This is Amadou,” Jean-Louis said for Matt’s benefit. “This is his property. Our families have traded for generations.”
—How many sons do you have? he asked his old friend, by way of further presentation.
“Fourteen sons,” Jean-Louis translated. “And many grandsons.”
“They all live here?” Matt expressed surprise.
“Most of them live in other towns, part of his trading business. The youngest still live here, in the houses at the back. Amadou is the wealthiest man in Bla.”
Jean-Louis translated his compliment back to Amadou who nodded sideways as if what Jean-Louis said was simple fact.
“I have explained everything to Amadou. We can stay here tonight. There are extra beds in the back houses.” After this brief introduction, Jean-Louis left through the back door to the courtyard to wash.
—You are welcome to what little I can provide, Amadou said to Matt.
“He said you’re welcome to what little he can provide,” Kolarik translated.
“Merci,” Matt said. “What happened to keeping quiet about your French?”
“Not a good time to play dumb. According to him,” he nodded toward the doctor tending his calf, “the chances of infection are pretty damn good coming out of that river. He said the wound’s too deep for him to treat. I need a blood test and a tetanus shot. He didn’t like the part about the rusted floor board either. Probably need to get back to Bamako, if not Cleveland.” Kolarik accepted his situation with equanimity. “Might have to face the music back home sooner than I thought.”
Out the lone window, open to the road, Matt saw Jacques wringing out a muddy rag and Sally scrubbing the back door of the mud-splattered Mercedes. A silver Renault 4x4 skidded to a halt nearby and four good-sized men in soccer jerseys stormed out.
Robert, their pursuer and Le Croc’s son, was recognizable by his Afro and the dressing taped across his forehead. He strutted straight up to Jacques and tackled him to the ground.
Then Sally screamed.
Chapter 28
Amadou marched out to see the cause of the scream and Matt followed.
A big man in a red jersey pinioned Sally’s wrists with one large hand.
Another man with a wide-eyed power-drunk look, spread his arms to combine a welcome with a threat. —Come at me, he tempted Amadou who walked right up to him and protested.
Another pop-eyed man blocked Matt. The standoff left Robert and Jacques to fight it out in the dirt.
Sally kicked at the shins of Red Jersey then shot her knee at his groin but missed. Before she could pull free, he slapped her hard across the face, which stunned and silenced her.
Matt ran to Sally’s aid, stumbled in his sandals, kicked them off and ran barefoot but lost any element of surprise. The pop-eyed man rushed him; Matt straight-armed his tackler but slipped in the wet earth and fell to his bare knees. His pursuer pounced on him and grabbed his tunic to keep him down. The two wrestled for freedom.
Sally tried to kick, prompting Red Jersey to slap her again. He raised his hand poised to deliver another blow, daring, and she yanked one hand free which only made her tormentor laugh and slap her again, and again, until she shut up. She couldn’t dodge his blows.
Amadou yelled fiercely at Red Jersey to stop.
Matt struggled to get free of the hands tearing at his tunic.
Jacques and Robert rolled into view in front of the Mercedes, Robert’s arms in the air, useless in a headlock.
Amadou reeled off orders, slicing the air with commands. This was his property but no one paid him any heed.
With Robert neutralized, a moment of indecision reigned, demanding someone take control.
Red Jersey pulled out a handgun from behind his back and pointed it at Sally’s head. He dropped her wrist and grabbed her braids. Gun at Sally’s temple, he demanded Amadou back off and that Jacques release Robert.
“The fuck?” Kolarik said from behind Amadou. The doctor gave him a shoulder for support. “This brother means business.”
Pedestrians and bicyclists gathered at the road. An old woman, balancing a translucent plastic container on her head, walked through the onlookers, indifferent. A passing car slowed, driver and passengers gawking.
Sally shrieked in pain as Red Jersey yanked her head back.
“He said he’ll hold her until your driver lets go of that Afro guy,” Kolarik said.
Red Jersey pulled harder. Sally endured.
Jacques released Robert to let his arms fall.
Red Jersey smiled at his small victory, his grip still firmly on Sally’s braids.
—Inside, he ordered, waving his pistol recklessly about.
Chapter 29
Back in the small sitting room of the main house, Kolarik sat on a sofa scratching at the healthy skin around the gash in his calf. Beside him the doctor nervously tapped his sandaled foot. Matt and Jacques occupied plastic chairs at either end of the sofa facing Sally who stood in the middle of the room, still in the grip of a cocky Red Jersey whose self-importance inflated when he took control.
Amadou allowed himself to be marched into his home, but refused to sit. He remained standing at the window, overlooking the outer courtyard where the Mercedes and the Renault attracted the attention of pedestrians.
Robert, so easily immobilized by Jacques, rubbed his shoulders and puffed earnestly on a cigarette. His rumpled orange jersey and jeans showed the signs of his muddy brawl. His Afro was matted and his head dressing flopped loosely, revealing an ugly lesion. Despite his efforts to press it in place, the bandage refused to adhere to his sweaty forehead.
Matt sat upright in his small chair with his hands on his bleeding knees. He burned with fury for failing to protect Sally. She stood unbowed in the center of the room, her head held at a painful angle, her dark eyes radiating hate.
Robert repeatedly asked for Jean-Louis. The thug was obsessed with finding the man who humiliated and nearly killed him in Treichville. Robert’s dressing kept falling open, forcing him to hold the bandage in place with one hand while he smoked with the other, the awkward combination of gestures diminishing the seriousness of his interrogation.
Amadou stood erect and intransigent. The venerable man looked down on his adversaries and refused to answer Robert’s questions.
Robert tried to question Jacques, the man who so effortlessly neutralized him, but he also refused to answer.
Stonewalled, Robert tried the bleeding figure of Kolarik. “Sorry, bud. Don’t understand a fucking thing,” he said, shaking his head. “But I need to wash this out.” He pointed to the door leading to the courtyard. “You let me out there?”