Jimfish was a little confused by this. ‘I take it, then, you don’t like change?’
The tall man smiled and waved his wooden sceptre. ‘I am warming to it all the time. But it must be carefully managed. Many of the greatest African leaders have been in power for decades, thanks to their understanding of the proper use of elections. When I consider what I call the Ceauşescu conundrum, I think I see where he went wrong. Freedom is better than stagnation and repression, so long as it’s regulated. I begin to think encouraging democracy and allowing several parties to compaign might be useful. Why should I be held to account for everything? Let them also share the blame.’
Jimfish returned the borrowed and now bloody silk handkerchief to his new friend.
‘The Romanians could profit from your advice. As far as I can see, and I may be wrong, those running their revolution look like the same people who ran the old regime.’
The gentleman from Zaire nodded. ‘No doubt. And mark my words, soon they will be claiming the high moral ground and lecturing African leaders about their appalling habits. This is the way of Europeans. They enslave Africa, pillage the continent and then preach sermons to their former slaves. I prefer their lash to their lectures. Enough of savage Europe. You need to get home again and I can help. Come with me.’
With that the elegant stranger in the leopard-skin toque took a handful of dollars from his Vuitton bag, hailed a taxi and they rode out to the airport. There on the tarmac was a most beautiful needle-nosed jet, which, his friend from Zaire explained, he rented from the French. Jimfish was greatly impressed. What a people these French must be! The cloud of radioactive dust from Chernobyl had stopped at their border and then gone around the sides of the country. And supersonic jets were loans they lavished on African heads of state.
‘Since we are compatriots,’ said Sese Seko, ‘let us dispense with titles for a while. At least in private. You are called Jimfish . . . Well, when I was a boy at the Christian Brothers College, in what was then Elizabethville, my name was Joseph-Désiré, but the other boys called me Jeff.’
It was agreed they would maintain this friendly informality, at least until they returned home, when Jimfish would have a variety of choices as to the name he preferred for his new friend: Messiah, Lion King, Redeemer, Guide or Great Helmsman. And so it was that, in the spirit of school friends, Jimfish and Jeff boarded the waiting Concorde and flew off to Africa.
CHAPTER 12
Zaire/Gbadolite, 1989–90
The needle-nosed jet taxied along the runway in tropical sunshine and Jimfish was glad to be home, even if this Africa of red dust and dark green bush was one he did not know. On the flight from Bucharest he had been pampered with caviar and Laurent-Perrier champagne, which, along with Coca-Cola, was the favourite beverage of the inventor of Zaire, whose destiny was an extension of his dreams, and who now gently reminded Jimfish that – as he was back in his country and must take on again the duties of his office – there would be no more schoolboy names.
‘Which of my many titles would you feel happiest to use? You may choose any one of them. Feel free, my fellow African friend.’
‘“Great Leopard” seems the best suited, I think. Especially because of your signature hat,’ Jimfish told him.
His companion was delighted, because it showed how well Jimfish understood his very special relationship with the Mother Continent – something his compatriots too often failed to grasp.
‘A very wise choice. I have my toques specially made for me in Paris, using only the fur of leopards I myself have shot. As principal protector of the royal beasts of Africa I can assure you that the leopard selected to become my headgear counts itself lucky to crown an intellect of such distinction.’
Jimfish was impressed by the other’s unassailable certainty, as well as his remarkable ability to adapt to all circumstances, even if this left him a trifle uneasy. It was a flexibility he had seen in the men who executed Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu on Christmas Day, and who turned overnight from cowering flunkeys into incendiary revolutionaries. How he wished he might achieve a smidgeon of their adaptability or feel even a tenth of their revolutionary rage.
His found his deficiencies in both these qualities very distressing. Surely he had seen enough cruelty and heartbreak in the time since fleeing Port Pallid, moments before Sergeant Arlow could shoot him? He had been present at the massacres in Matabeleland led by General Jesus; endured the loss of his lovely Lunamiel, cruelly blown to bits as she said her prayers; watched helplessly as Ivan the Russian murdered the good Jagdish at Chernobyl; and he had looked on helplessly as his mentor Soviet Malala was executed by a drunken firing squad in the doomed city of Pripyat.
But now he was home once again. It was Boxing Day, the New Year and a new decade of the Nineties lay ahead, and Jimfish made it his New Year’s resolution to try harder than ever to burn with the fury that fired the lumpenproletariat to a happy landing on the right side of history.
In a giant, open-topped limousine, flanked by motorcycle outriders and Horse Guards – splendid in uniforms based on those worn by Napoleon’s cavalry – the Great Leopard and his friend progressed from the spanking-new airport, where the runways had been specially lengthened to allow the Concorde to land, into a town called Gbadolite. Chanting crowds lined the route and Marshal Mobutu translated the praise song they repeated: ‘One party, one country, one father – Mobutu!’ He waved his wooden sceptre to acknowledge the cheers.
Almost everyone in the town was related to Seso Seko Mobutu, he told Jimfish proudly, and they all adored him.
‘I am bound to my people by pure love. But what good is love if it doesn’t take very concrete forms? It is as simple as that, you will find.’
Simple was not at all what Jimfish found.
What had been a tiny village was now a thriving city of thousands. His friend pointed out the German-run hospital, the new sawmill, the factories, the impressive dam to supply hydroelectric power, the experimental breeding farm stocked with thoroughbred English cows and Swiss goats, the Coca-Cola plant, and, last but not least, the Central Bank of Zaire, where printing presses worked day and night to produce bushels of banknotes adorned with the image of the leader in his leopard-skin hat.
Gbadolite was his home town, and ‘Home for a king,’ the marshal explained, ‘is where your palace stands.’
Ahead loomed a colossal palace ringed by a high fence. Sentries saluted as the limousine swept through the gates of gold and drew up at the main door, which was bracketed by enormous pink marble columns and guarded by four life-size white marble lions. In the palace gardens stood towering sculptures of elephants, lions and buffaloes, while peacocks wandered at will among pools, fountains and waterfalls.
Jimfish was lost in admiration. ‘It is a palace in the forest!’
Marshal Mobutu nodded. ‘It’s known as Versailles in the Jungle. I have a second one nearby, a pagoda, built for me by the Chinese. And somewhere’ – he made a vague gesture towards the thick green bush that surrounded the estate – ‘is a third. But I lose track of them. After all, I own a castle in Spain, a palace in Switzerland, capacious residences in Paris, the Riviera, Belgium, Italy, the Ivory Coast, Senegal, South Africa and Portugal. Not to mention a string of palaces that adorn Zaire like a lovely necklace, stretching from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi. To me a palace is just one more place to hang my hat.’
Seeing his friend’s incomprehension at this prodigious display, the Great Leopard said soothingly: ‘I don’t do this for myself, but because I know my people. I understand how much they admire glamour. They are too poor to afford anything themselves. So someone must take up the challenge on their behalf. I sacrifice myself in the name of peace. We have over two hundred ethnic groups in Zaire and I am the magic that melds them together.’
In what was clearly a customary ceremony of welcome, a butler led in a young leopard on a silver chain and presented it to the Great Leopard, who in turn introduced his pet to Jimfish.
‘Th
is is Simba, my friend and brother.’
The leopard looked at Jimfish and he looked at the leopard. It seemed a shame to keep a big cat on a chain, but he was too polite to say so.
‘Come, let’s go to my office,’ the marshal proposed.
Up the spiral Italian staircase he led Jimfish, beneath great crystal chandeliers flowering from tall ceilings, followed by butlers, valets, pages, chefs, housemaids and praise singers, while from speakers hidden in the walls came the plaintive chant of Gregorian monks.
The presidential office seemed about the size of a tennis court and, after opening the safe and stuffing his favourite Vuitton bag with hundred-dollar bills, they moved into the presidential bedroom. It was dominated by an immense bed of sculpted marble in the shape of a pink cross. Jimfish was invited to seat himself beside the Great Leopard, and then, at the touch of a button, like an ascending elevator, the great bed climbed smoothly until it was level with the windows. Gathered in the gardens below was a large, excited crowd.
‘My relatives,’ the President explained, throwing fistfuls of dollar bills from the window, beaming to see his devoted family fighting for their share as the greenbacks rained down. ‘This ceremony encourages loyalty and love and competition. My advice over the years, to poor Nicolae, was to keep your friends close and your enemies closer still. I wish he had listened to me.’
Once the distribution of dollars was over, palace tailors came and took Jimfish’s measurements, and returned a few hours later with a set of splendid clothes. The Great Leopard having forbidden all western costume in his country, the craftsmen had sewn for Jimfish a tunic of gunmetal grey that echoed the President’s. It had a pert collar, worn with an olive-green silk cravat. He was also presented with a ceremonial pistol in a holster of python skin to be worn on formal occasions. In each pocket of his tunic he found neat stacks of hundred-dollar bills, placed there by his ever-thoughtful friend the Great Leopard, who, when Jimfish tried to thank him, brushed aside his gratitude.
‘You are my African brother,’ he said. ‘It is I who must thank you for helping me to find another recipient for a very small part of my fortune.’
There was to be a great banquet that evening with more pink champagne, truffles, foie gras, shrimp, quail and caviar to celebrate the safe return of the Redeemer to his people. But Jimfish had begun to feel the strain of his travels and pleaded to be allowed an early night, to which his host graciously assented.
And so it was that Jimfish found himself alone in a bedroom, itself as large as the old trawler captain’s house in Port Pallid. Before sleeping, he switched on the giant TV and watched the evening news bulletin. It opened with a portrait of Mobuto Sese Seko, Beloved Leader, Solitary Sun, Incomparable Helmsman, shown descending from heaven, garlanded with golden rays, while unseen choirs hymned his incomparable genius. There followed film of their arrival at the airport of Gbadolite and scenes of his relatives massing in the palace gardens to receive the rain of dollars. The nightly newscast closed with the Blessed Redeemer of Zaire ascending to heaven to the accompaniment of harps and trumpets.
Unable to keep his eyes open a moment longer, Jimfish fell fast asleep wearing his splendid new suit of clothes, with his ceremonial pistol in its holster of python skin. So dead to the world was he that, when he felt someone shaking him gently, he was sure he was dreaming.
He opened his eyes to find a black lady swathed in a silver veil, who bent over him and whispered: ‘Follow me and you will be very, very happy.’
When he asked what this happiness might be, she touched her finger to his lips and whispered, ‘Trust me, Jimfish.’
CHAPTER 13
Down a long, dimly lit passage and into another part of the palace, the veiled woman led Jimfish, seemingly knowing her way by instinct. She showed him into a room furnished with a fine red sofa and enormous tapestries, woven with hunting scenes of kings and knights pursuing wild boar. Here she told Jimfish to wait. He sat on the red sofa and pondered the tapestry. The hunters on their giant horses, their lances buried in the bleeding bellies of the snarling boars, and in the corner of the scene he saw the emblem of the President himself, a leopard on a chain, lunging at the prey.
Yet despite the carnage in the tapestries, the atmosphere seemed to Jimfish softer and less brazenly opulent than he had found it in the rest of the palace.
After a little while, the door opened and in came his guide, leading by the hand a woman, who held before her face a carnival mask. Jimfish jumped to his feet when she entered. There was something about her that made him sink back again on the sofa, his heart hammering his ribcage. At a sign from her attendant, the lady lowered her mask and there she was: his beloved Lunamiel, as lustrous and luscious as the day he had seen her last in faraway Port Pallid, when, lying on the red picnic rug in her father’s orchard, he and she had become as entangled as the tendrils of the strangler fig.
It was all too much for poor Jimfish, still dizzy and exhausted by the events of the past days, and he fainted. When he came to, he was stretched full length on the sofa, his head in Lunamiel’s lap, struggling to make sense of it all, while she dabbed his lips and temples with a handkerchief dipped in cooling cologne.
‘But they told me you were dead,’ Jimfish whispered. ‘That you were in church one Sunday when a bomb blew you to bits.’
‘But for the grace of God I would have been blown to bits,’ Lunamiel said. ‘Such outrages were common in our country in the mad mid-1980s when everyone was at war. Whites were shooting blacks, blacks were bombing whites and each side was ready to destroy the other. But as it happened, I wasn’t in church that day – thanks to a miracle. My brother, Deon – who you will remember vowed to shoot you if ever he found you – had the luck to meet a rich Zairean businessman who promised him the deal of a lifetime if he would travel to the Congo to meet the Great Leopard, at the time dealing secretly with our government. Deon was offered exclusive mineral rights – cobalt, copper, gold, diamonds or all of them – if he provided strategic advice to the leader of Zaire, who had a problem very common across Africa. The President was immensely rich and his people were starving. The question that plagued Sese Seko Mobutu and dozens of leaders like him was easy to state but hard to solve: how does a Big Man deal with the needs of poor people and still keep everything he has?’
‘Certainly, that is a hard question,’ Jimfish agreed. ‘And I’d say impossible to solve. You can have either one or the other.’
Lunamiel agreed. ‘But that was the test: if my brother came up with the answer he’d be a millionaire.’
Jimfish was pleased: perhaps Deon Arlow had some qualities he’d not heard of back in Port Pallid. ‘And your brother agreed to help?’
‘He did. But it took a considerable struggle with his conscience. He is a real white South African who had been taught, ever since he was very, very small, to distrust and dismiss other black Africans. But when it came to business, Deon was a great adapter and he could turn his coat quicker than anyone I ever knew. Whenever Deon crossed the South African on business he behaved in a manner so refined you might call it almost human. Deon knew his duty was to do business in Zaire, though of course he said nothing to our father, wishing to spare his feelings. And that is why, when the bomb exploded beneath the altar of my church in Port Pallid on that Sunday morning, ripping to shreds any number of worshippers, my brother and I were sipping champagne in first-class seats, high above the Victoria Falls, on a flight to Kinshasa.’
‘It’s a miracle!’ said Jimfish.
‘Someone has to pay for other people’s miracles,’ said Lunamiel. ‘Sadly, my father, believing I was indeed dead, set off to punish those he suspected of planting the bomb, shooting many of them, just as he would have shot you, my dear Jimfish, had you not fled the garden that day we sat together. As it happened, the men he killed were not the perpetrators of the attack. Agents of our own government had planted the bomb in church with what they regarded as the laudable intention of laying the blame at the door of
black terrorists.’
‘How sad and ironic,’ said Jimfish.
‘Exactly so,’ said Lunamiel. ‘As you will see when I tell you that the very next Sunday, when my father and mother went to church to pray for me, they were themselves blown to bits by a bomb, placed beneath the altar, by the remaining members of the black liberation movement whom my father had not managed to shoot.’
‘How terrible!’ Jimfish was horrified at the painful symmetry of these violent acts.
‘And sad and ironic,’ Lunamiel agreed with a wan smile. ‘Both sides in our homegrown war now felt it was quits, at least for a while. But how did you come to be here, my dear Jimfish? I want to know everything that has happened since you fled Port Pallid for Zimbabwe and the outside world.’
So Jimfish hugged her tightly and told her of his travels in Matabeleland, his work as a bio-robot on the roof of Reactor Number 4 at Chernobyl, of the treacherous murder of the good Jagdish and the death of Soviet Malala, his unforgettable teacher. And, hearing his adventures, Lunamiel was moved to tears more than once.
‘Do you think it’s the fate of South Africans to end badly?’ he asked Lunamiel.
She sighed. ‘Since arriving in this country I’ve heard it said over and over that the only good South African is a dead South African. And when I tell you what has happened to me, you may ask yourself whether death is not a desirable option.’
And with Jimfish hanging on her every word, side by side on the red sofa, she told him her story.
CHAPTER 14
‘My brother Deon is not only flexible in his principles and pragmatic in his business practices, he is positively elastic in family matters. We had not been in Zaire more than a few days when he enlightened me as to my role in his business.
‘“You are not merely my dear sister,” he explained. “You are going to play a vital role in the deal I’ve signed with a Big Man in the court of the Great Leopard. No less a personage than his Minister of Mines.”
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